Baltimore artist Shinique Smith debuts Bright Matter exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts

Shinique Smith with Especially In The Afternoon (detail) 2008. Ink, acrylic, fabric, and collage on canvas over wood panel. (Keith Bedford photo.) (Photo: Keith Bedford)

Shinique Smith’s latest solo exhibit, Bright Matter, debuting at the Museum of Fine Arts, is somewhat of a homecoming for the artist, who completed her Master of Arts in Teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and graduated from Tufts University in 2000.

Bright Matter features 30 works, 14 of which are new, and includes vibrant and colorful calligraphic and collaged paintings, large-scale sculptures of recycled garments, installations, video and performance.

Smith’s work is imbued with an energy and movement. Confident about this exhibit and her latest works, she says that “everything that was chosen for this show is strong and it also has this line of connection.”

Smith has been developing the exhibit in collaboration with the MFA since 2012 and says the exhibit came about when she started talking about the underlying principles of the work.

“Over the course of the two years these ideas shifted and developed,” she said. “Through those under-currents we chose those works that shared an affinity, a gesture, a memory, a potential movement. It was about the sway, things that could potentially move.”

And one of her works that reflects this movement, this sway, is the painting Splendid created this year for Bright Matter. It’s an eye-catching painting that “makes you want to eat it, like candy,” says Smith.

“Embedded within it is an affirmation that I want to have an energy transference,” she explains. “That’s my biggest hope that someone would feel like it’s nourishing in that way but it might be a hippie new-age thing.”

Splendid draws in the viewer with its swirls of white, pink, and black accents all on “a palette of crisp turquoise that reflects the popular product colors of Smith’s teen years, centered by an effervescent web of scrunched fabric and ribbon braids,” as described by the MFA.

Influenced by hip hop, graffiti, Japanese calligraphy, dance, fashion, and the poet Rumi, the Baltimore-born artist displayed an eye and talent for art at an early age. Encouraged by her mother, a former magazine fashion editor, Shinique studied ballet at the age of four and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts before heading to the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1992.

Smith didn’t plan a career in art. In fact she tried to do other things. After undergrad, she worked in film as a production assistant, working on costumes. She tried to set art aside “but I was in denial” Smith said.

“The things that felt natural to me didn’t feel like they were because they were natural,” she said. “I needed to do something real with my life.”

And yet, she found herself coming back to art.

Since 2002, the New York-based artist has had more than 20 solo exhibitions around the world including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Deutsche Guggenheim (Berlin, Germany), Yvon Lambert (London, Paris & New York), the James Cohan Gallery (New York, NY), Brand New Gallery (Milan, Italy), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Of her creating so many pieces of art over the years, Shinique remarks that “it doesn’t seem like it at the time because it’s every year. Maybe there’s 10 pieces. And there’s group shows. You’re in the moment of making. It’s not until you have a show like this one where there’s 30 works. Where you’re like, ‘wow, I made a lot of stuff’. I’m always going to be making. It’s part of who I am and I think I need to do it.”

In addition to the Bright Matter exhibit, Smith was also commissioned to create a new 70-by-70 foot temporary mural by the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway Conservancy to be unveiled in Boston’s downtown Dewey Square this month. The mural which was inspired by her 2013 painting Seven Moons will be on display for a year across from South Station.

Of Bright Matter, Smith hopes the take-away for visitors is that “collectively I would want a viewer to see my thought process and feel a sense of discovery, [that it] evokes a sense of something in them,” says Smith.

Bright Matter will run through March 1, 2015 in the Henry and Lois Foster Gallery at the MFA and is sponsored by Celebrity Cruises. Presented with generous support from the Robert and Jane Burke Fund for Exhibitions, The Contemporaries, and the Callaghan Family Fund for Contemporary Exhibitions. Additional support provided by the Eugenie Prendergast Memorial Fund, made possible by a grant from Jan and Warren Adelson.

For more information, visit www.mfa.org.