January 2011

McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC, Features Works by Sonya Clark & Quisqueya Henriquez

McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC, will present the exhibit, Converge, featuring mixed media works by Sonya Clark and Quisqueya Henriquez, on view from Jan. 27 through Mar. 24, 2012. A reception will be held on Jan. 27, from 6-9pm.

Sonya Clark investigates simple objects as cultural interfaces. Through these, she navigates accord and discord, and is instinctively drawn to things that connect to her personal narrative as a point of departure. Using items such as a comb, a piece of cloth, or a strand of hair, she wonders how they come to have meaning collectively. The questions she asks of the history, function and material of her objects and the conclusions she comes to from these questions direct the form, scale, and material choices in her work.

Drawn to everyday objects, Clark employs the use of plastic combs, hair and American money to reference her place within the confines of history and African and African American culture and heritage. She investigates the historical context of hair and its meaning related to “the first textile artists,” African Americans who manipulated their hair with combs. Individuals including Madame CJ Walker who reinvented the hair-straightening comb thus, becoming the first African American woman to become a millionaire, are represented in her unique portraits of American citizens. With contemporary references including President Obama, Clark’s work in Converge collapses the time between the Emancipation Proclamation and today.

Originally from Washington, DC, Clark received a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has exhibited her work in more than 250 museums and galleries internationally and has been awarded the Pollock-Krasner Award, a Rockefeller Foundation Residency and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship.

Quisqueya Henríquez explores racial, ethnic, gender, and cultural stereotypes through sculpture, collage, prints, video, installations, and sound. Her work often fuses formalities of economics, current events, and Art History with vernacular life in the Caribbean. Henríquez tends to come up with ideologically suggestive one-liners generated by her preoccupation with the gap between international modern art and the local, vernacular arts and cultures of Latin America.

Cuban-born Henriquez incorporates collage and drawing over appropriated and often distorted images of twentieth-century artists and architects to investigate her place within the framework of art history. By marrying personal imagery with familiar images of the Whitney Museum of Art’s lobby and the site of a Gordon Matta Clark installation, Henriquez provides a commentary on her own challenges regarding access, support and inclusion. Ironically, many of these images she uses are from artists who in their own artistic practice also borrowed from other artists to raise questions about their respective places in the world and their roles.

Henriquez graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. She has exhibited her work throughout Latin America, Europe and the US. Her work can be found in private and public collections including El Museo del Barrio in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Florida. She was recently named as one of the 25 art world trendsetters by ARTnews.

McColl Center for Visual Art is a nationally acclaimed contemporary art center dedicated to connecting art and artists with the community. Located in a historic, neo-Gothic church in Uptown Charlotte, the Center houses nine artist studios and over 5,000 square feet of gallery space. We welcome the public to explore our exhibitions and connect with artists through various programs including open studios, community outreaches, workshops and more.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Center at 704/332-5535 or visit (www.mccollcenter.org).

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