Triad

Sonya Y.S. Clark

1998

cloth and thread

These delicately crafted pieces in Sonya Clark's "Wig Series" examine ordered structure and symmetry in African American hairstyling culture. These five works are part of a larger series inspired by the Fibonacci sequence of numbers; they are parted into sections of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8, respectively. As disembodied domes, they underscore the head's spiritual importance-across several African traditions-as the home of the soul.

The scalp is divided into three sections. Each section is combed into a braid. The universal trinity: beginning, middle and end of past, present and future is symbolized in the child's hairstyle that is ubiquitous throughout the African Dispora.

Credit

Purchase, through the Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund