Tuesday Smillie (born 1981 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American interdisciplinary artist based in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Her work focuses on trans-feminist politics and the aesthetics of protest. Smillie has been recognized for her reinterpretation of protest banners through traditional craft materials. Writer Johanna Fateman describes work like Smillie's ''Street Transvestites 1973'' (2015) as "ornate, meticulously sewn and painted trans-liberation banners" that "could not get their radical point across more lovingly."

Life and work

Smillie holds a BFA from

Oregon College of Art and Craft Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC) was a private art college in Portland, Oregon. It granted Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees as well as art-focused certificates. The college offered an Artist-in-Residence program and pro ...

with a concentration in Book Arts. Many of Smillie's collections take inspiration from feminist science fiction author

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...

, primarily her novel ''

The Left Hand of Darkness ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' is a science fiction novel by U.S. writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Published in 1969, it became immensely popular, and established Le Guin's status as a major author of science fiction. The novel is set in the fictiona ...

'' about gender-fluid inhabitants of the planet Gethen. Smillie has held solo exhibitions at the

Rose Art Museum The Rose Art Museum, founded in 1961, is a part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, it offers temporary exhibitions, and it displays and houses works of art from the permanent col ...

, Participant Inc, and her work has been included in group exhibitions at the

Rubin Museum of Art The Rubin Museum of Art, also known as the Rubin Museum is a museum dedicated to the collection, display, and preservation of the art and cultures of the Himalayas, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and other regions within Eurasia, with a per ...

Artists Space Artists Space is a non-profit art gallery and arts organization first established at 155 Wooster Street in Soho, New York City. Founded in 1972 by Irving Sandler and Trudie Grace and funded by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), Artist ...

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, and the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...

. She led a Study Session at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

. Smillie's work has been featured in several news sources of prestige including

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countri ...

, Wall Street International Magazine and

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

. She was the first resident artist of the Museum Of Transgender Hirstory & Art (MOTHA). In 2016 a series of watercolor paintings inspired by LeGuin’s novel were displayed at

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational ...

. The exhibition was organized by the Haverford College Libraries in conjunction with the exhibition “Bring Your Own Body: transgender between aesthetics and archives," an exhibit curated by Jeanne Vaccaro and Stamatina Gregory at the 41 Cooper Gallery in New York. In 2018, she had two solo exhibitions and one group exhibition: "Reflecting Light into The Unshadow," which ran from 1 July until 5 August at Participant Inc. located in New York, "To build another world," which ran from 7 September through 9 December at the Rose Art Museum, and “Face of the Future," which ran through 4 November at The Rubin Museum of Art. Taking the Le Guin novel ''

'' as inspiration, Smillie displayed an array of textile collages and banners as well as prints and works on paper including several watercolor paintings. In "Face of the Future," contemporary artists were challenged to create artwork taking inspiration from the classical sci-fi genre as well as their own imaginings of the future. Smillie’s work was presented alongside works by

Maia Cruz Palileo Maia Cruz Palileo is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Their work consists of paintings, drawings and sculptures, and explores they/them Filipino-American heritage through the examination of memory, family photographs, and or ...

, Tammy Nguyen, Sahana Ramakrishnan and Anuj Shrestha.

Awards and residencies

Awards

's Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award * Grant from Art Matters

Residencies

Kala Art Institute Kala Art Institute is a community arts non-profit organization, artist residency, art classes, and an art gallery, founded in 1974, and located in two locations in Berkeley, California. About They offer facilities for printmaking, photography, ...

* Freehold Art Exchange in New York * The Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art's inaugural artist residency

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions * Reflecting Light Into The Unshadow, Participant Inc. (2018) *To build another world, Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University (2018) * The Right Brain of Darkness, Haverford College (2016) Selected group exhibitions * ''Nobody Promised You Tomorrow,''

(2019) * ''Feminist Histories'',

São Paulo Museum of Art The São Paulo Museum of Art ( pt, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, or ') is an art museum located on Paulista Avenue in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. It is well known for its headquarters, a 1968 concrete and glass structure designed by Lina Bo B ...

(2019) * ''Face of the Future'',

Rubin Museum The Rubin Museum of Art, also known as the Rubin Museum is a museum dedicated to the collection, display, and preservation of the art and cultures of the Himalayas, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and other regions within Eurasia, with a per ...

(2018) * ''Trigger: Gender As A Tool And A Weapon'',

(2017)

References

External links

Artists' website

Tuesday Smillie, "Seized by the Left Hand," chapbook (2019/2020)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smillie, Tuesday Living people Transgender artists Artists from Boston Artists from New York City LGBT people from Massachusetts 1981 births 21st-century American artists 21st-century American women artists Oregon College of Art and Craft alumni