Sonya Clark                art news: Nov/Dec 2011 


Greetings!

   

A few exhibits of mine open in the next two months in North Carolina and Texas.  My work will be at will be at the art expo, Sculpture Objects Fine Arts (aka SOFA-Chicago.) A few exhibits are continuing in Pennsylvania and New York but they close soon.  If you are not able to get to any of these, check out the two blog reviews of my solo exhibit in ArtSmartTalk and American Craft. But, I would really love to see you at my artist talk at the Art Alliance in Philadelphia on November 10th (see below.)  If you are in the vicinity, I hope you can make it.   

 

My best,
Sonya

 headshot
Artist's Lecture
When: Thursday, November 10 @ 7 pm
Where: Philadelphia Art Alliance
251 South 18th Street Philadelphia, PA
 
Want to know why a girl from DC decided to make artwork from textiles, combs, and hair? Come on by my talk and I'll let you know. For more details call (215) 545-4302 or click here 

Exhibitions

OPENING SOON...

 

Exposition: SOFA Chicago

When: November 4 - 6, 2011

Where: Navy Pier Hall, 600 E Grand Avenue, Chicago, IL

My work will be shown with Snyderman Works Gallery (Booth 1308.) Other artists in the Snyderman-Works group include Joyce Scott, Dorothy Caldwell, Warren Seelig, Bruce Metcalf, Karen Gilbert, and Cynthia Schira among others.  

 

Exhibit: NEW MATERIALITY  

When: November 18, 2011 - March 18, 2012

Where: Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC  

The artists in this traveling exhibit curated by Fo Wilson "use new technologies in tandem with traditional craft materials - clay, glass, wood, fiber and metal - to forge new artist directions."  The exhibiting artists are  Brian Boldon, Shaun Bullens, Lia Cook, Susan Working and E.G. Crichton, Donald Fortescue and Lawrence LaBianca, Wendy Maruyama, Christy Matson, Cat Mazza, Nathalie Miebach, Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers, Sonya Clark, Tim Tate, and Mark Zirpel. Catalog available.

 

 

Exhibit: SONYA CLARK 

When: December 8, 2011 - February 12, 2012

Where: Rogers Gallery, Southwest School of Art, San Antonio, TX
Paula Owen, President of the Southwest School of art and one of the organizers of the traveling exhibition wrote this in the catalog: "Trained in the fiber arts, Clark today weaves together not threads but ideas and symbols in order to produce elegant yet demanding works of art. The visceral but quotidian properties of her works, as well as their exquisite execution, force our attention, compelling the viewer to grapple with their sweeping implications. To explore the poignancy and potency of lineage and the biases of history through works of art requires unique cognitive and perceptive skills." The catalog also has essays by Ashley Kistler, Director of the Anderson Gallery at VCU, and Namita Gupta Wiggers, Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon.  Catalog available.  

 

 

CLOSING SOON...

 

through November 19
Exhibit: SONYA CLARK (solo exhibit)
Where: Snyderman-Works, 303 Cherry St, Philadelphia, PA 
(description above)

through November 13
Exhibit: DUBH, dialogues in black

Where: American Irish Historical Society, 991 Fifth Avenue, NYC
"The color black has long held a fascination in art, craft and design. The exhibition  looks at black as both a physical and an emotional starting point for a group of Irish and American artist's, craftspeople and designers. Pairing people from across a range of disciplines ranging from architecture, ceramics, furniture, glass, jewelry, metal, painting, photography, textiles and wood this exhibition features work from the most interesting creative voices from Ireland in dialogue with their American peers. Under the creative direction of curator Brian Kennedy this exhibition will offer an insight into the studio practice of these artists and their common concerns, a simple starting point with a complex outcome." The exhibit will travel to Ireland in 2012. Catalog forthcoming.

through December 4
Exhibit: COMPLEX WEAVE
Where: Robeson Gallery, Penn State University, University Park, PA
I have an installation in this traveling group exhibit co-curated by Dr. Rosenberg of Rutgers University and Dr. Isaacs of Towson University.  The exhibit is accompanied by a 90-page full-color catalog
and includes the work of several other artists such as Lalla Essaydi, Fujiko Isomura, Flo Oy Wong, Zoe Charlton, and Annet Couwenberg.




 
 

Some background information

I'm chair of the Department of Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Richmond, Virginia.  I went to Cranbrook Academy of Art for my MFA,  the Art Institute of Chicago for my BFA, and before that, Amherst College for a BA in psychology. My work has been exhibited in over 250 venues in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Taiwan, Austria, Australia, Ghana, France, Switzerland, and throughout the USA. I have been able to pursue my studio practice because of generous honors and opportunities such as a Pollock-Krasner Award, a Rockefeller Foundation Residency in Italy, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Award, a Red Gate Residency in China, a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship, and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, and an Art Matters grant. Currently, I sit on the Board of the American Craft Council and formerly served on the Board of the Haystack Mountain School of Craft.