Sonya Clark / MATRIX 184

Using common materials, Clark creates sculptures that explore how our understanding of objects reveals our personal and collective attitudes. 

Focused on the Black experience in the United States, the artist often uses cultural symbols to grapple with the connections between history, racism, inequality, and social justice. Clark integrates a wide range of media in her work, including combs, copper pennies, beads, kente cloth, and hair, all of which, she says, “absorb our stories and reflect our humanity back to us.” 

For her MATRIX project, Clark presents a variety of “hair” works, including the series For Colored Girls, a rainbow that refers to Ntozake Shange’s award-winning play for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1974), which has just returned to Broadway.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website