Sonya Clark (b. 1967, American) is a renowned multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work explores themes of the African diaspora, cultural heritage, memory, race, identity, visibility, and history through material-based, tactile art. Drawing from her Afro-Caribbean background—her mother from Jamaica and father of Yoruba descent—Clark’s practice engages deeply with the legacies of colonization, slavery, and cultural symbolism. Utilizing materials such as hair, cloth, flags, combs, coins, and seed beads, she creates powerful works that transcend craft into platforms for social commentary, activism, and cultural critique. Her use of hair challenges societal notions of beauty and power while honoring both personal and collective histories. Her works celebrate resilience, cultural pride, and social change, while addressing race and historical erasure.
Clark’s extensive body of work, including large-scale installations, sculptures, and performances, has been exhibited in over 400 museums and galleries across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australia. Major projects include The Hair Craft Project, Kente Flag Project, and Unraveling, an interactive public engagement with the Confederate flag. Monumental Cloth: The Flag We Should Know at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia opened in 2019. That same year she opened Sonya Clark: Hair Goods, An Homage to Madam CJ Walker at Goya Contemporary Gallery in Baltimore. In 2021, Clark opened Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend, a comprehensive survey of Clark's 25-year career held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., featuring 100 works that explore themes of heritage, labor, language, and visibility. This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World, highlighting 171 artworks, including Clark's "Monumental Cloth," opened at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery in 2023. Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other opened in 2023 at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield, MI and traveled to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City throughout 2024, with a focus on the artist’s community-centric, participatory projects.
Recent multi-artist exhibitions include Unfinished Republic: America at 250 at Goya Contemporary Gallery, Baltimore; America Will Be! at The Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park; Unbraid: Hair, Clay, and Craft at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Americana at the Branch Museum of Design, Richmond, Virginia; Declare: A Civic Gospel at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; and Framing American Democracy: Rebel | Revolt | Resist at the Amistad Center for Art & Culture.
Clark served as Distinguished Research Fellow and Chair of the Department of Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2006 to 2017 and is currently Professor of Art at Amherst College. Previously, she was Professor of Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA from Amherst College. She has also been awarded honorary doctorates from Amherst College (2015) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2023).
Clark's work has been recognized with numerous prestigious honors, including awards from ArtPrize, Art Matters Foundation, United States Artists, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Anonymous Was A Woman, the American Craft Council Gold Medal, the Rappaport Prize from the deCordova Museum, and the James Renwick Alliance. A Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, she has participated in artist residencies in Beijing, France, Italy, Senegal, and across the United States. She was the inaugural recipient of the Black Rock Senegal Residency Fellowship and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2026.
Clark and her works have been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, ARTFORUM, Artsy, Sculpture Magazine, LA Times, Hyperallergic, Mother Jones, and The Huffington Post, among others. Represented by Goya Contemporary in Baltimore, her art is included in major museum and private collections worldwide.