Shinique Smith’s sculpture, paintings, and collages reflect the belief that possessions reveal identity, create personas, and confer power. She is a student of the social totems represented by clothing and furnishings, observing how they perform along a spectrum of duty, beginning with function and ending as narrative. A determined bricoleur, she places a range of mass-produced things—including clothing, household items, aluminum fencing, shoes, and furniture—in symbolic ensembles that replace original meaning with a subversive new identity that re-creates or resurrects memories and perceptions… see the entire article in the print version of January/February’s Sculpture magazine.
