June Issue 2000
YMI Cultural Center in Asheville, NC, Features Works by Sonya Clark
The YMI Cultural Center in Asheville, NC, is pleased to host an exhibition of works by African-American artist Sonya Clark beginning June 2 and running through Aug. 12.
Clark's Head Ways is a collection of sculptural headdresses that evoke the sanctity, power and history of her African heritage. Clark, a first generation American woman of African-Caribbean descent, explains, "The Yoruba of Nigeria have a saying, 'The head wrap is only good when it fits. I am in pursuit of making a head wrap that truly fits the collective head of the African Diaspora. That which is carried "on" the head is often indicative of what which is carried "within" head. The head is a sacred place, the center where cultural influences are absorbed, siphoned and retained, and the site where we process the world through the senses. The sculptural headdresses I create are metaphorical funnels for the fluidity of cultural heritage and cultural melding"
Clark has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in African Studies from Amherst College in Massachusetts, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Masters of Fine Arts from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI.
She has participated in numerous exhibitions, most recently in 1999 with Heads and Tales in the Wisconsin Academy Gallery and Cultural Influences in Craft at Penland Gallery in NC. In 1999, Clark was awarded a grant from the University of Wisconsin to fund the Beaded Prayers Project, a community centered collaboration inspired by West African Art traditions.
Some of her work is featured in traveling exhibitions Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity at the Detroit Museum of African American History, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, UCLA Fowler Museum, and the Newark Museum of Art and Pure Vision:American Bead Artists at the Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, Massachusetts, University of Miami, Lowe Museum, Coral Gables, FL, and Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA, among others.
Clark will also lead workshops for adults and
senior citizens at the YMI Cultural Center where participants
will create and Construct beaded purses based on West African
amulet traditions.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings
or contact the YMI Cultural Center at 828/252-4614.
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