Post-Katrina mixed-media art visits Saltworks

This hearth is topped by golden plaster putti, a chipped, cast-off cherub sculpture reminiscent of the city's European flavor and the cataclysmic mishaps of 2005. Hanging overhead, a tight cloud-shaped clothing bundle accentuates the landscape nature of the piece and references the hobolike nomadic path of the clothing and fabrics that are so important to this body of work.

The life of the street is bound up in all of Smith's work, on a local as well as global scale. She gathers used clothing culled from the active trade in cast-off clothing, primarily between the United States and Africa.

While Smith has personal associations with some of the items, she's more interested in the political understanding of this trafficking, in how American culture is symbolized through the afterlife of these items abroad. Smith binds the clothes with fluorescent pink nylon, tied and wrapped with a graphic energy that's followed through in the calligraphic Japanese brushwork of the paintings.

Just as in the sculptural works, she layers a lyrical abstraction with collaged words and images of personal references and street culture. One of the strongest works, "When You Were Mine" (2008), integrates graffiti-decorated denim over self-assured gestural ink and painted surfaces.

Atlantans should take note of the wealth of internationally acclaimed artists to be showing in the city of late. Smith, who was recently included in the opening exhibition at the New Museum in New York, is certainly among them.

REVIEW

"Shinique Smith: Torch Songs"

Curated by Isolde Breimeier. Through May 31. 1-6 p.m. Saturdays. Prices: $2,000-$15,000. Saltworks Gallery, 635 Angier Ave., Atlanta. 404-876-8000, www.saltworksgallery.com.

Bottom line: Smith's lively mixture of fabric, found objects and energizing painting is worth a trip to Saltworks.