Sonya Clark

Sonya Clark is Chair of the Craft and Material Studies Department at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Richmond, Virginia. She holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA from Amherst College and in 2015 was awarded an honorary doctorate. She is the recipient of many prestigious awards including the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art, awarded by the Gibbes in 2014. Clark's work is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Musées d'Angers in France, and has been exhibited in over 300 museums and galleries throughout the world.

Sonya Clark brings to the Gibbes an interactive installation of Pluck and Grow, a collaborative work between the artist and Museum visitors. Clark uses hair as metaphor for what connects us as humans, separates us into racial groups, and makes us individuals. The artist invites people to write their "hair stories" on a piece of paper—whether that be a poem, a story, or a drawing. The paper will be dyed in varying shades of black, brown, and blonde to give the appearance of human hair and Clark will twist and insert them into "follicles" drilled into a surface. Once on display, visitors may pluck a strand, read the story, and replace it with their own hair story on a slip of white paper. As these new stories replace the original ones, the piece will take on the appearance of aging—as real human hair would.