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September Issue 2006
Gallery of Art & Design in Raleigh, NC, Features Works by Sonya Clark and Sid Oakley
The Gallery of Art & Design at NC State University in Raleigh, NC, is presenting two new exhibitions including: Sonya Clark Tangles, Teeth & Touch, on view through Oct. 8, 2006, and Sid Oakley Artist, Mentor, Friend, on view through Dec. 21, 2006.
Sonya Clark
Clark uses beads, combs and hair to tell her story, to explore material culture, and to honor her ancestors. Clark's range of experiences in the United States and abroad contributes to a toolbox of material and cultural fluency from which she draws. Grounded by close and loving ties to family and her Afro-Caribbean ancestry, her work often includes anecdotes or elements of autobiographical intimacy. As an artist-scholar, Clark's in-depth research into the history, use, and possibilities of her media inform her compositions of hair, combs and beads in expansive and thoughtful new ways. Whether they are monumental or delicate in scale, Clark's handling of her materials is confident and timeless. Together, the objects presented here create a visual conversation as she moves fluidly between media and method to resolve her ideas. Patient and diligent in her process, Clark weaves together concepts that are ancient, African, Asian, contemporary, and cutting-edge.
Clark is Chair of the Craft/Material Studies Department at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, in Richmond, VA. Formerly she was a Baldwin-Bascom Professor of Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA from Amherst College. She is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Award, Chenven Award, Elliott Award, a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, and a Romnes Prize. Her work has been exhibited in over 150 venues in the UK, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Taiwan, Austria, Australia, France, Switzerland, and throughout the USA.
As the exhibition title states, Sid Oakley (d.2004) was not only an accomplished painter and potter in his own right, but also a friend and mentor to up-and-coming artists throughout his life. His Cedar Creek Gallery in Creedmoor, NC, which he established with his wife, Pat, in 1968 became a Mecca of sorts for craftspeople seeking inspiration as well as a venue to sell their work. This exhibition presents paintings and ceramics by Sid Oakley as well as work by many he inspired and assisted including Cynthia Bringle, Bruce Gholson, Lisa Oakley, Ben Owen III, Michael Sherrill and many more.
In 1981, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned Sid to produce a series of his crystalline pots for its catalog, and the State Department presented one of Sid's pots to the President of South Korea when he visited the United States. In 1983 Sid was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of Campbell University and in 1989 he was named an NC Living Treasure. His pots graced the NC Governor's Mansion and are included in collections in the NC Museum of History, Duke University Art Museum, the Chrysler Museum and the Folk Art Museum of Tokyo.
On Sept. 7, 2006, at 7pm, Lou Proctor, Oakley's longtime friend and art dealer will give a gallery talk about the exhibit.
For more information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 919/515-3503 or at (www.ncsu.edu/arts).
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