Sable Elyse Smith’s interdisciplinary practice spans photography, painting, video, text, neon and sculpture. Often using language to highlight its performative aspect, the artist blends that which is political, public and personal to reveal institutional violence in the contexts of the carceral and court systems, correction facilities and racial injustices. Smith combines the imagery of mass incarceration with unexpected metaphors, such as an intimate touch of a lover, children’s colouring books or playgrounds. The contrast produced is at once uncanny and familiar: while not physically spoken of, the violence that Smith’s work reveals is entrenched, normalised in everyday public consciousness. By displaying the trauma of unseen, ignored narratives, the social commentary of Smith’s conceptual practice strives to find the missing language to speak of the unspoken. 

Carlos/Ishikawa

New York City

Venice Biennial

Venice

Whitney Biennial

Los Angeles

Matthew Brown

Rachel Uffner Gallery

Andrea Rosen

London

Greengrassi

New Museum of Contemporary Art

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Queens

MoMA Ps1

Swiss Institute

Philadelphia

Ica Philadelphia

Richmond

Ica Vcu

High Line

Aperture Foundation

Serpentine Galleries

MoMA

Brooklyn

Smack Mellon

Queens Museum

San Francisco

Yerba Buena Center For The Arts

The Studio Museum In Harlem

Miami

Ica Miami

Whitney Museum of American Art

Brooklyn Museum

Milwaukee

Haggerty Museum

Annandale-On-Hudson

Ccs Bard

Atlanta

Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

Sable Elyse Smith

Parsons School Of Design At The New School

Oglethorpe University

Coloring Book 127

Untitled

Riot I

Pivot II

Coloring Book 62

Coloring Book 43

Coloring Book 42

Coloring Book 38

Coloring Book 36

Coloring Book 29

8423 Days