Sonya Clark facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sonya Clark
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| Born | 1967 (age 57–58) Washington, D.C. |
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| Occupation | Artist |
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| Website | http://www.sonyaclark.com |
| Position held | professor  |
Sonya Clark (born 1967) is an American artist with Afro-Caribbean roots. She is famous for her fiber art, using everyday items like human hair and combs. Her art explores big ideas like race, culture, and history.
In the late 1990s, her beaded headdresses and braided wigs became very popular. These works reminded people of African traditions of decorating oneself. They turned common items into powerful statements about personal and political feelings. Clark's art is influenced by African art and her Caribbean background. She also uses methods like collecting and combining objects, similar to artists such as Betye Saar and David Hammons.
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Sonya Clark's Early Life
Sonya Clark's father was a psychiatrist from Trinidad. Her mother was a nurse from Jamaica. Sonya was inspired by the talented craftspeople in her family. Her grandmother was a tailor, and her grandfather made furniture.
Education and Learning
Sonya Clark finished Sidwell Friends School in 1985. She then earned a degree in psychology from Amherst College in 1989. After that, she studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 1993. There, she learned from artists like Nick Cave (performance artist) and Anne Wilson. In 1995, she received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
In 2011, Cranbrook Academy of Art gave her their first Distinguished Mid-Career Alumni Award. She has also received four special honorary doctorates. These include one from Amherst College in 2015 and two in 2021. In 2023, she received another honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Professor Rowland O. Abiodun at Amherst College greatly influenced her. He helped her see the links between her Caribbean culture and Yoruba culture. A trip to the Ivory Coast after college furthered this interest, where she learned to weave on a hand loom. She also credits Nick Cave for helping her explore fiber art even more.
Her Career as a Professor
Sonya Clark is currently an art professor at Amherst College. Before this, she led the Craft/Material Studies Department at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) from 2006 to 2017. She was also a Distinguished Research Fellow there. In 2016, she won a university-wide Distinguished Scholars Award at VCU's School of the Arts.
Before VCU, she was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, she earned tenure and received an H.I. Romnes award for her creative work.
Sonya Clark's Art Work
Much of Clark's art uses simple, everyday items. These include combs, beads, coins, threads, and strands of hair. She uses these materials to show how people give meaning to objects. Clark believes that "Objects have personal and cultural meaning because they absorb our stories and reflect our humanity back to us."
She is well-known for art that celebrates modern craftspeople, like hairdressers. She also honors important African American figures. Clark has studied with craftspeople around the world. She learned about their materials, tools, and cultural traditions. In her art, craft and community are closely linked. Many of her projects involve people working together across different backgrounds.
Clark describes her art as using "craft and materials to investigate identity." She says simple objects become "cultural interfaces." She uses them to explore agreement and disagreement. When she wants to understand complex issues, she starts with things connected to her own life. These might be a comb or a strand of hair. She believes these everyday "things" can help us understand each other better.
The Hair Craft Project
The Hair Craft Project is a series of photos and canvas artworks. Sonya Clark worked with Black hairstylists on this project. She sees these stylists as artists who work with textiles. Each hairdresser showed their amazing skills on Clark's own hair. They used her head as a canvas for their designs.
Each finished hairstyle was photographed. Then, a matching artwork was created on canvas. On the canvas, the hairstylists recreated the hair design using silk thread. This project shows that both hair salons and art galleries are places of skill and creativity.
Clark says, "Hairdressers are my heroes." She believes their hands can map a head with a comb. They can turn hair into complex art forms. She also states, "hair is power," and it "holds the essence of identity." Clark grew up braiding hair, which helped her become a textile artist. She even worked with a graphic designer to create an alphabet based on the curl pattern of her hair, called Twist.
The Flag Project
Clark's work with flags began in 1995 with her Kente Flag Project. This project mixed African and American cultures. She used Kente patterns, which represent strength and achievement. These traditional African patterns were woven on a European loom. She combined them with images from the American flag. The result was fabric showing cultural pride from two different backgrounds.
Since 2009, Clark has created many projects about the Confederate Battle Flag. In 2015, she performed "Unraveling" in New York City. She performed it again in 2016 and 2017. During this performance, audience members join Clark to pull apart strands of a Confederate flag. As they do, she explains her ideas. This act is part of a larger movement to remove Confederate symbols.
In 2017, Clark created a hand-woven linen cloth. It was a copy of the white dish towel a Confederate soldier used to surrender in 1865. This piece is called "Monumental Cloth (sutured)." Clark hopes this "flag of truce" becomes as famous as the Confederate Battle Flag. She wants people to remember the flag that ended the Civil War. She questions why symbols of white supremacy are remembered more than symbols of peace.
A larger version of this project, "Monumental Cloth: the Flag We Should Know," was shown at The Fabric Workshop and Museum. Her huge 450-square-foot copy of the truce flag, called "Monumental," is now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery.
Exhibitions and Awards
Sonya Clark's art has been shown in over 500 museums and galleries. These include places in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Her work is part of many museum collections. Some of these are the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
She has received many awards for her art. These include the Anonymous Was a Woman Award and a United States Artists Fellowship. She also won a Pollock-Krasner Award and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. In 2020, she was inducted into the American Craft Council College of Fellows.
Her art is also featured in many books about art and textiles. In 2023, her work was part of a group show called Spirit in the Land. This show was organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
Exhibitions of Her Work
- 2023: Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other, Cranbrook Art Museum
- 2021: Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend, National Museum of Women in the Arts
- 2019: Monumental Cloth: the flag we should know, Fabric Workshop and Museum
- 2019: Sonya Clark: Hair|Goods, An Homage to Madam CJ Walker, Goya Contemporary Gallery
- 2017: Oaths and Epithets: Works by Sonya Clark, Contemporary Craft
- 2015: Loving After Lifetimes of All This, The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design
- 2008: Sonya Clark: Loose Strands, Tight Knots, Walters Art Museum
