Shanice Smith
Selected works

The ‘Currency’ series is a visual investigation into the way women are viewed through society’s lenses. Considering nightclub culture as a point of departure for example, women are usually free before an indicated time, given two-for-one entry rates, or sometimes granted access based on attire and how socially acceptable it is to the male gaze. A popular case of that occurred in 2016 is an ideal example, where she was forced to pay the male cover charge for entering into a popular nightclub on Trinidad’s notorious “Avenue” because she did not present herself as feminine gender.

Nice ting does be in glass case was my first bit of investigation into violence against women. Jean Kilbourne documents in ‘Killing Us Slowly’—a documentary on women in advertising—that women must first be perceived as objects for ownership before they become subject to a perpetrator’s blows. Women’s bodies are often dismembered or contorted to boost the product in the advertisement. Breasts form a significant part of my visual representations since, according to Kilbourne, women with implants tend to lose feeling in their breasts after some time allowing them to shift effortlessly from person to object of desire.

Shanice Smith was born in 1991 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. Her mixed-media pieces centre around deconstructing and examining violence, objectification and commodification.

Smith first completed her certificate qualifications in Social Work and Psychology at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus, before going on to pursue her bachelor’s in Fine Art at the UWI, St. Augustine Campus.

Her work has been on display at Alice Yard, Port-of-Spain; the National Museum of Trinidad and Tobago; Toronto Urban Film Festival; The Fresh Milk Art Platform, Barbados; Caribbean Linked IV, Aruba; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; and The Project Space, Deakin University, Australia to name a few.