Sonya Clark

Sonya Clark
Born	1967 Washington, D.C.
Nationality	African American, of Caribbean heritage
Education	Nick Cave (performance artist)
Alma mater	MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art; BFA, Art Institute of Chicago; BA, psychology from Amherst College and received an honorary doctorate in 2015; Sidwell Friends School
Known for	Fiber art
Movement	Influenced by Yoruba art; known for works featuring hair and combs
Awards	Anonymous Was A Woman Award, United States Artists Fellowship, Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Award, and others

Sonya Clark (born 1967, Washington, D.C.) is an American artist of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Clark is known for using a variety of materials including human hair and combs to address race, culture, class, and history. Lowery Stokes Sims, curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, NY wrote, "Since 2000 Sonya Clark has created startling new art featuring hair and combs. This work is a logical extension of her much-acclaimed beaded/assemblaged headdresses and assembled/braided wig series of the late 1990s that evoked African accoutrements while advancing the basic forms to new arenas of expression."

Clark was influenced by the craftspeople in her family, including a grandmother who worked as a tailor, and a grandfather who was a furniture maker.

Clark’s personal connection to the comb began like that of nearly every young girl, squirming on a chair while an adult armed with a comb and good intentions attempted to bring order to the disorder on her head.

Clark holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and in 2010 was honored with their first Distinguished Mid-Career Alumni Award. She has a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied under the artist Nick Cave (performance artist) and a BA in psychology from Amherst College. She graduated from the Sidwell Friends School in 1985.

Since 2006, Clark has been chair of the Craft/Material Studies Department in the highly acclaimed School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. The department is ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top in the nation. Prior to her appointment at VCU, she was Baldwin-Bascom Professor of Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received tenure with distinction and an H.I. Romnes award. Previously, she was Baldwin-Bascom Professor of Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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