Sonya Clark

hair series | DOWNLOAD PDF

Short, cropped, and natural. That was my hairstyle for many years. When I started allowing it to grow, hair, which had long been a subject in my work also became my medium. Hair is power. Note the Samson myth, Rastafarian dreadlocks, and Angela Davis’s Afro of the 1960s. It grows approximately 5 inches a year and measures our lives like Lachesis of the Three Fates in Greek mythology. As carrier of DNA, hair is the essence of identity. Deep within each strand, the vestiges of our roots resound. In this work hair is formed into markers of chronology, wisdom, and adornment.