Sonya Clark
Curls, 2005-2007
Combs
Variable dimensions

Sonya Clark
Groom Room
February 15 - June 15, 2008

For artist Sonya Clark, hairdressing is the primordial fiber art.  By creating art with thousands of hair combs, she references the legacy of hair culture and the meaning of combs as tools.  In the Comb Series, Clark arranges combs into forms that resemble curls, strands of hair, and textiles. She uses combs for their traditional and figurative associations: “Combs imply order as much as they are tools that organize the fibers we grow.  They suggest thorough investigation, as in [the phrase] to go through with a fine-toothed comb.”

Sonya Clark (Richmond, VA) holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  She has shown work nationally and internationally, and received a Pollock Krasner Grant in 2006.  Clark is currently Professor and Chair of the Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.