The Sculptural Language of Shinique Smith
Los Angeles–based artist Shinique Smith is renowned for her distinctive visual language, creating monumental fabric sculptures and expressive paintings that blend calligraphy and collage. Her dynamic compositions, characterised by frenetic forms and layered materials, evoke memories and connections that transcend space, time, race, and gender, suggesting the possibility of new worlds.
Beneath the Veil, 2025 acrylic, found textiles, artist's custom designed fabric and collage on wood panel. Courtesy the Artist & Rele Gallery
A recipient of both the Academy of Arts & Letters Purchase Prize and the prestigious Joan Mitchell Prize, Smith’s kaleidoscopic practice is as expansive in vision as it is in reach. Her career gained momentum with Frequency, the Studio Museum in Harlem’s seminal 2005 exhibition, where she exhibited alongside contemporaries such as Nick Cave and Hank Willis Thomas. Since then, Smith has continued to push creative boundaries, including a collaboration with the late “Godmother of Rap” Nikki Giovanni on a survey for the National Portrait Gallery and MFA Boston.
In 2024, she reached another milestone with a landmark exhibition at the Ringling Museum, where her large-scale works were displayed in conversation with historic European art - foregrounding themes of Black femininity while exploring the universality of human experience.
As she entered 2025, Smith’s work featured in Poetics of Dimensions at the ICA San Francisco, and Social Fabrics: Magic & Memory, a two-person show with Marcellina Akpojotor at the Nigerian-run Rele Gallery Los Angeles.
Torque (view from below), 2024. Custom printed and hand-painted textiles, found hubcaps, hula-hoops, ribbon, rope, yarn and sound collage. Courtesy the Artist and Newfields/Indianapolis Museum of Art.
As the year progresses, she has 2 more major exhibitions on show. Currently on now is By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection, and until June, her solo installation TORQUE will be on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art Galleries at Newfields. This multi-sensory exhibition weaves together printed and painted textiles, found objects, and the sounds of motion and speed - an homage to Indianapolis’s storied racing culture.
Despite preparations for a busy year ahead, Shinique has answered some interview questions for us.
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5 Minutes with a Friend: Shinique Smith
Portrait of Shinique Smith, 2017
Shinique, what is your first memory of a textile?
When I was a baby, there was a bathing blanket my mom made - soft terrycloth, cheery pink on one side and sun yellow on the other. It made me feel warm and loved when she wrapped me up in it after my bath.
Can you put into words what you love about textiles?
I love the ubiquity of textiles. I love the durability and the malleability of the material to be repaired, reused and reinvented. I love the inextricable relationship between fabric and humans, as basic need and creative expression. I love exploring the countless histories, kinds, patterns, connections and meanings we've woven with textiles. Textiles are forever.
She waited secretly, between shadow and soul, 2021 (detail). Bleached clothing from ex, ribbon, yarn African waist beads, and shadows. Courtesy the Artist.
Where is your most inspiring space or place to create?
My studio is the most inspiring place for creating my work with or without textiles. It's a space where I can work indoors or outdoors on multiple things at once, dye, bleach, sew, paint, draw and sing songs and dance. It is a sanctuary for my creative energy.
Pieces of Grace, 2020. Garments, textiles, fabric dye and ribbon over wood panel. Courtesy the Artist
What has inspired you recently?
Most recently, I've been intrigued by emerging technologies around color changing textiles. Also, I loved Issey’s Fall25 show inspired by Erwin Wurm's One Minute Sculptures - it reminded me of movements made when creating my sculptures.
What is your most cherished textile, and why?
I have several cherished pieces. One is a white cotton and lace sleeve of one of my grandmother's nightgowns. It's pure and I remember her wearing it. Another is a polyester hand-sewn dress my uncle made for my Raggedy Ann doll in his high school colors. It is imperfect but the stitches show how earnestly it was made with love.
Raggedy Ann Doll Dress, as made by Shinique's Uncle
Where did you learn your craft?
I've learned things along the way like dying cloth in middle school, block printing in undergrad, bundling from tribal rituals - my taste and desire to work with fabrics from my mom. Everything I've learned, from dance to tai chi sword, informs my hand and my work I'm still learning and discovering ways of expressing myself through textiles and paint.
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Further Information:
By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection is open now, until June 8 2025.
Shinique Smith: Torque is open through June 2025 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art Galleries at Newfields.
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Image Credits:
Lead Image: Mitumba Deity II, 2018/2023. Clothing, vintage textiles, ribbon and rope, turquoise and aventurine beads, pearls, blown glass and fabric garlands, and grandmother Vernessia Smith’s antique dresser. Courtesy the Artist & Rele Gallery.
All other images as credited in the captions.