Sonya Clark The Huest Eye, 2023
Embroidered thread on Rives BFK paper
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 61 cm)
Edition of 12
Published by Goya Contemporary / Goya-Girl Press
Sonya Clark’s two editions, The Huest Eye and The Bluest, Twisted, center around the seminal writing of Toni Morrison’s groundbreaking novel The Bluest Eye, published in 1970. The artist has read and reread the book more than thirty times. Utilizing embroidery and lithography techniques, these two stunningly striking editions examine a complex dialogue that centers Blackness in America and redresses society’s constructed ideals of beauty in relation to internalized racism.
In her writing, Toni Morrison—one of the 20th century’s most influential writers and intellectuals-- challenges the discriminatory, socially constructed myths of Western beauty paradigms which privilege Whiteness above Blackness. The book centers the negative impact these destructive falsehoods have on society and its most vulnerable members. Set in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940’s, The Bluest Eye tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black child negotiating life and navigating the racism and violence in America while persistently pursuing “beauty.”
Morrison's metaphorical and symbolic use of color in this book is profound, and Clark positions the 473 colors referenced by Toni Morrison into blocks of vibrant, embroidered thread that act as visual stand-ins for each color in the text. As Clark explains: “In The Huest Eye the colors follow the order in which they appear in the writing. The length of each color block corresponds to the length of the word. Red is a short block, whereas purple is longer. I did the green and white together in some places, as this is where Morrison refers to the Dick and Jane stories, which commingle into compressed, unseparated words as the novel progresses.” Clark goes on to explain that the entire piece “is meant to correspond with The Bluest, Twisted as a solid mass. And of course, if you mixed all those referent colors together, one would arrive at black.”
“It is key that the colors are embroidered on paper to highlight the relationship between text and textile,” said Clark. “The Bluest, Twisted connects visual representations of hair, the fiber we grow, to text. And it is significant that Toni Morrison died the year the CROWN act was written, in 2019.” The Bluest, Twisted overlays all the pages from The Bluest Eye transliterated into an alphabet (called Twist) that Clark created using her own hair. The Bluest, Twisted builds upon itself to form a black mass of natural hair that, when framed and glazed, becomes a mirror, and reflects the viewer. “It is important the viewer sees themselves in this work,” says Clark. “My font, made in curl pattern of African hair, resists the European dominance of the Roman alphabet’s widespread use. Twist re-centers Africa as the cradle of humanity. It returns us to our roots.”
Published by Goya Contemporary/Goya-Girl Press, and working with one of the most celebrated printmakers in the country, Judith Solodkin of Solo Impression in NY, Clark translates her potent message into meticulously embroidered and printed works that question and bear witness to how we treat each other, and why.
Toni Morrison once said, “If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” Morrison was intentional about the stories she gifted the world. In a similar way, every aspect of Clark’s two works reaches fruition with extreme intentionality to examine epic themes and disrupt the stronghold of discrimination that is reinforced by routine language, customs, actions, and representations.
Both Morrison’s and Clark’s cultural impact cannot be understated. Like Morrison, Clark credits her ancestors for impacting the tenor of her work, as well as her navigation through the world. Clark was deeply impacted by Morrison’s writing and her activism and considers Morrison a heroic figure of truth and justice.
*All quotes taken from a conversation between Sonya Clark and Amy Raehse, October 2023.
Sonya Clark The Bluest, Twisted, 2023
Lithograph on Rives BFK paper
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 61 cm)
Edition of 30
Published by Goya Contemporary / Goya-Girl Press
Sonya Clark’s two editions, The Huest Eye and The Bluest, Twisted, center around the seminal writing of Toni Morrison’s groundbreaking novel The Bluest Eye, published in 1970. The artist has read and reread the book more than thirty times. Utilizing embroidery and lithography techniques, these two stunningly striking editions examine a complex dialogue that centers Blackness in America and redresses society’s constructed ideals of beauty in relation to internalized racism.
In her writing, Toni Morrison—one of the 20th century’s most influential writers and intellectuals-- challenges the discriminatory, socially constructed myths of Western beauty paradigms which privilege Whiteness above Blackness. The book centers the negative impact these destructive falsehoods have on society and its most vulnerable members. Set in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940’s, The Bluest Eye tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black child negotiating life and navigating the racism and violence in America while persistently pursuing “beauty.”
Morrison's metaphorical and symbolic use of color in this book is profound, and Clark positions the 473 colors referenced by Toni Morrison into blocks of vibrant, embroidered thread that act as visual stand-ins for each color in the text. As Clark explains: “In The Huest Eye the colors follow the order in which they appear in the writing. The length of each color block corresponds to the length of the word. Red is a short block, whereas purple is longer. I did the green and white together in some places, as this is where Morrison refers to the Dick and Jane stories, which commingle into compressed, unseparated words as the novel progresses.” Clark goes on to explain that the entire piece “is meant to correspond with The Bluest, Twisted as a solid mass. And of course, if you mixed all those referent colors together, one would arrive at black.”
“It is key that the colors are embroidered on paper to highlight the relationship between text and textile,” said Clark. “The Bluest, Twisted connects visual representations of hair, the fiber we grow, to text. And it is significant that Toni Morrison died the year the CROWN act was written, in 2019.” The Bluest, Twisted overlays all the pages from The Bluest Eye transliterated into an alphabet (called Twist) that Clark created using her own hair. The Bluest, Twisted builds upon itself to form a black mass of natural hair that, when framed and glazed, becomes a mirror, and reflects the viewer. “It is important the viewer sees themselves in this work,” says Clark. “My font, made in curl pattern of African hair, resists the European dominance of the Roman alphabet’s widespread use. Twist re-centers Africa as the cradle of humanity. It returns us to our roots.”
Published by Goya Contemporary/Goya-Girl Press, and working with one of the most celebrated printmakers in the country, Judith Solodkin of Solo Impression in NY, Clark translates her potent message into meticulously embroidered and printed works that question and bear witness to how we treat each other, and why.
Toni Morrison once said, “If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” Morrison was intentional about the stories she gifted the world. In a similar way, every aspect of Clark’s two works reaches fruition with extreme intentionality to examine epic themes and disrupt the stronghold of discrimination that is reinforced by routine language, customs, actions, and representations.
Both Morrison’s and Clark’s cultural impact cannot be understated. Like Morrison, Clark credits her ancestors for impacting the tenor of her work, as well as her navigation through the world. Clark was deeply impacted by Morrison’s writing and her activism and considers Morrison a heroic figure of truth and justice.
*All quotes taken from a conversation between Sonya Clark and Amy Raehse, October 2023.
Sonya Clark Confederate, Surrender, 2022
Mixografia print on handmade paper
43.75 x 23.25 x 0.75 in. (111.13 x 59.06 x 1.91 cm)
Edition of 30
Clar-1114-C
Sonya Clark’s Confederate, Surrender centers on a seemingly quotidian object imbued with monumental historical weight: a white tea towel with red pin stripes, originally woven in Richmond, Virginia. The work examines the history of the Confederate Flag of Truce raised by General Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox (April 9, 1865).1 Fashioned from a simple kitchen dish towel, the Truce Flag signaled the collapse of soldiers fighting to preserve the institution of slavery.
By reconstructing this object in print, Clark disrupts the visual dominance of the Confederate battle flag—a symbol inextricably linked to the violent defense of Black enslavement and its persistent legacy of racism. Instead, she redirects attention to the modest textile that signaled the Confederacy’s surrender—the quiet wave of a domestic object that initiated the formal conclusion of a war waged against Black freedom.
In an interview between Sonya Clark and Paul Farber, archived on the Monument Lab website, Clark recalls her experience as a Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellow in 2011. During that time, she visited the National Museum of American History, where a long line of visitors had gathered to view the Star-Spangled Banner. In another exhibit, she encountered Abraham Lincoln’s iconic top hat, displayed within an exhibition on American presidents. In the same display case, however, she noticed a small, folded textile labeled “Confederate Flag of Truce”—a quiet but charged object placed alongside one of the nation's most revered presidential artifacts.
“It wasn’t hidden, just largely unamplified,” said Clark. “It is not that it was undiscovered, but that it hasn’t lived in public memory the way other flags have”— And so she sought to bring attention to that overlooked history.2 “I suspect most people know the Confederate flag but don’t know about the Confederate truce flag?” said Clark. “What would it mean if we had focused our attention on the surrender and all that it implied? Where might we be now?”3
[Note to reader: American historian, museum director, and public scholar Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III curated the “Truce Flag” into the aforementioned exhibition before later serving as the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and, subsequently, as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.]
As an intimate domestic textile, a dish towel is typically handled, folded, and worn through repetitive labor. In this dimensional print—rendered to emphasize the truce flag’s specific weave structure—Sonya Clark elevates a once-utilitarian cloth into a charged historical artifact.
Clark characterizes her engagement with fraught national symbols as an “amplifying, educative intervention.”4 Rather than smoothing over tension, she preserves it through tactile processes that insist on material and historical presence. By reimagining the towel-turned-truce flag, Clark reframes surrender not as mutual reconciliation between equal parties, but as the necessary dismantling of a regime built upon racial violence.
Through this artistic gesture, Sonya Clark redirects national memory toward an object worthy of recognition, replacing Confederate iconography with a symbol of its collapse.
Clark states, “That's the power of art. That's one of the things I can do as an artist—I can use my voice to amplify this historical object and other historical objects that changed our path.”5 “Amplify” is precisely what Clark accomplishes.
Confederate, Surrender centers our attention on the exact moment a system committed to enslavement was forced to yield. By foregrounding the truce flag, Clark surfaces a history that has been muted or overlooked. In doing so, Confederate, Surrender honors not only the end of the Confederacy, but also the profoundly unfinished struggle for justice that followed emancipation—and that continues today.
-Writing by Amy Raehse unless otherwise noted.
Footnote
[1] Rubenstein, Harry, R., “The Gentleman’s Agreement that Ended the Civil War,” What It Means to Be American, April 3, 2015
[2] Sonya Clark and Paul Farber, Monument Lab Podcast, Episode12, March 2019. https://monumentlab.com/podcast/in-pursuit-of-the-confederate-truce-flag-with-artist-sonya-clark
[3] Sonya Clark, describing her Monument Lab Podcast interview via email, 2026
[4] Sonya Clark, describing her engagement with charged historical textiles as “an act of care,” in phone conversation, 2025
[5] Sonya Clark, describing in email, 2026
This work was produced at the Mixografia print atelier. For three generations, the Remba family has shaped the field of printmaking and is recognized for developing and refining their innovative three-dimensional printing technique over more than 50 years. For the past 25 years, Goya Contemporary has worked alongside our print colleagues at Mixografia. As fellow members of the IFPDA—including service on its Board of Directors—we share a commitment to the highest standards of care, ethics, and connoisseurship in printmaking, as well as a mutual dedication to creating space for artistic vision. We are proud to represent these extraordinary prints, the histories they illuminate, and the spirit of collaboration they embody between artist, atelier, and gallery.
Sam Gilliam Study III Blue Nile, 1972
Mixed media on paper
Left object: 14.63 x 10.25 in. (36.91 x 26.04 cm)
Right object: 11.88 x 17.63 in. (30.18 x 44.78 cm)
Frame: 20 x 33.25 in. ( 50.8 x 84.46 cm)
Gill-1003-O
François Morellet Pi piquant, 1999
Etching
Paper: 23.5 x 23.4 in. (59.7 x 59.4 cm)
Frame: 28.5 x 28.5 in. (72.4 x 72.5 cm)
Edition 14 of 40
More-1001-O
Amalie Rothschild Duo W, 1982
Cast handmade paper
Paper: 29.5 x 29.5 x 1 in. (74.93 x 74.93 x 2.54 cm)
Plexiglas: 36 x 36 x 2.25 in. (91.44 x 91.4 x 2.25 cm)
ROT-1127-C
Amalie Rothschild Io, 1982
Cast handmade paper
Paper: 24.25 x 24.25 x 2.5 in. ( 61.6 x 61.6 x 6.4 cm)
Plexiglas: 28.4 x 28.4 x 3.75 in. (72.1 x 72.1 x 9.5 cm)
ROT-1071-C
Amalie Rothschild Dawn's Early Light, 1997
Lithograph
Paper: 18 x 24 inches
Frame: 23 x 29 inches
Edition of 20
Published by Goya Contemporary / Goya-Girl Press
ROT-0026-CO
Soledad Salamé In the Ocean III, 2026
Silkscreen on handmade paper, jeans pulp
Paper: 14 x 10.5 in. (35.6 x 26.7 cm)
Frame: 19.75 x 15.75 in. (50.2 x 40 cm)
Edition 1 of 1
Sala-1345-C
Soledad Salamé Yellow Algae, 2025
Silkscreen and hand painting on Rives BFK paper
Paper: 19 x 19 in. (48.3 x 48.3 cm)
Frame: 23 x 23 in. (58.4 x 58.4 cm)
Edition 1 of 1
Sala-1344-C
Soledad Salamé Blue Algae, 2025
Silkscreen and hand painting on Rives BFK paper
Paper: 19 x 19 in. (48.3 x 48.3 cm)
Frame: 23 x 23 in. (58.4 x 58.4 cm)
Edition 1 of 1
Sala-1343-C
Soledad Salamé Under Water, 2025
Silkscreen, hand painting, chine collé
Paper: 22.25 x 29.75 in. (56.5 x 75.6 cm)
Frame: 26.4 x 33.75 in. (67 x 85.7 cm)
Edition 1 of 1
Sala-1342-C
Joyce J. Scott Buddha Obama, 2012
Monoprint from the Obama Series on Rives BFK paper
Paper: 22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
Frame: 25.75 x 33.5 in. ( 65.4 x 85.09 cm)
Scot-1026-C
Joyce J. Scott Dice Baby 3, 1999
Monotype with handwork on Somerset Velvet paper
Paper: 29.5 x 39.5 in. (74.9 x 100.33 cm)
Frame: 31.1 x 41.6 in. (79.1 x 105.7 cm)
Edition 1 of 1
Published by Goya Contemporary / Goya-Girl Press
SCO-0105-CO
Joyce J. Scott Runs in the Family, 1999
Monotype with handwork on Somerset Velvet paper
Paper: 29.5 x 39.5 in. (74.9 x 100.33 cm)
Frame: 31.1 x 41.6 in. (79.1 x 105.7 cm)
Published & Printed by Goya Contemporary / Goya-Girl Press
SCO-0094-CO
Joyce J. Scott Soul Erased, 1999
Lithograph, screen print, embossing on Rives BFK
30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 55.9 cm) each
Edition of 20
Published by Goya Contemporary/Goya-Girl Press
SCO-0070-CO
![Sonya Clark 
Confederate, Surrender, 2022
Mixografia print on handmade paper
43.75 x 23.25 x 0.75 in. (111.13 x 59.06 x 1.91 cm)
Edition of 30
Clar-1114-C
 
Sonya Clark’s Confederate, Surrender centers on a seemingly quotidian object imbued with monumental historical weight: a white tea towel with red pin stripes, originally woven in Richmond, Virginia. The work examines the history of the Confederate Flag of Truce raised by General Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox (April 9, 1865).1 Fashioned from a simple kitchen dish towel, the Truce Flag signaled the collapse of soldiers fighting to preserve the institution of slavery.
By reconstructing this object in print, Clark disrupts the visual dominance of the Confederate battle flag—a symbol inextricably linked to the violent defense of Black enslavement and its persistent legacy of racism. Instead, she redirects attention to the modest textile that signaled the Confederacy’s surrender—the quiet wave of a domestic object that initiated the formal conclusion of a war waged against Black freedom.
In an interview between Sonya Clark and Paul Farber, archived on the Monument Lab website, Clark recalls her experience as a Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellow in 2011. During that time, she visited the National Museum of American History, where a long line of visitors had gathered to view the Star-Spangled Banner. In another exhibit, she encountered Abraham Lincoln’s iconic top hat, displayed within an exhibition on American presidents. In the same display case, however, she noticed a small, folded textile labeled “Confederate Flag of Truce”—a quiet but charged object placed alongside one of the nation's most revered presidential artifacts.
“It wasn’t hidden, just largely unamplified,” said Clark. “It is not that it was undiscovered, but that it hasn’t lived in public memory the way other flags have”— And so she sought to bring attention to that overlooked history.2 “I suspect most people know the Confederate flag but don’t know about the Confederate truce flag?” said Clark.   “What would it mean if we had focused our attention on the surrender and all that it implied? Where might we be now?”3
[Note to reader: American historian, museum director, and public scholar Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III curated the “Truce Flag” into the aforementioned exhibition before later serving as the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and, subsequently, as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.]
As an intimate domestic textile, a dish towel is typically handled, folded, and worn through repetitive labor. In this dimensional print—rendered to emphasize the truce flag’s specific weave structure—Sonya Clark elevates a once-utilitarian cloth into a charged historical artifact.
Clark characterizes her engagement with fraught national symbols as an “amplifying, educative intervention.”4 Rather than smoothing over tension, she preserves it through tactile processes that insist on material and historical presence. By reimagining the towel-turned-truce flag, Clark reframes surrender not as mutual reconciliation between equal parties, but as the necessary dismantling of a regime built upon racial violence.
Through this artistic gesture, Sonya Clark redirects national memory toward an object worthy of recognition, replacing Confederate iconography with a symbol of its collapse.
Clark states, “That's the power of art. That's one of the things I can do as an artist—I can use my voice to amplify this historical object and other historical objects that changed our path.”5 “Amplify” is precisely what Clark accomplishes.
Confederate, Surrender centers our attention on the exact moment a system committed to enslavement was forced to yield. By foregrounding the truce flag, Clark surfaces a history that has been muted or overlooked. In doing so, Confederate, Surrender honors not only the end of the Confederacy, but also the profoundly unfinished struggle for justice that followed emancipation—and that continues today.
-Writing by Amy Raehse unless otherwise noted.
 
Footnote
[1] Rubenstein, Harry, R., “The Gentleman’s Agreement that Ended the Civil War,” What It Means to Be American, April 3, 2015
[2] Sonya Clark and Paul Farber, Monument Lab Podcast, Episode12, March 2019. https://monumentlab.com/podcast/in-pursuit-of-the-confederate-truce-flag-with-artist-sonya-clark
[3] Sonya Clark, describing her Monument Lab Podcast interview via email, 2026
[4] Sonya Clark, describing her engagement with charged historical textiles as “an act of care,” in phone conversation, 2025
[5] Sonya Clark, describing in email, 2026
 
This work was produced at the Mixografia print atelier. For three generations, the Remba family has shaped the field of printmaking and is recognized for developing and refining their innovative three-dimensional printing technique over more than 50 years. For the past 25 years, Goya Contemporary has worked alongside our print colleagues at Mixografia. As fellow members of the IFPDA—including service on its Board of Directors—we share a commitment to the highest standards of care, ethics, and connoisseurship in printmaking, as well as a mutual dedication to creating space for artistic vision. We are proud to represent these extraordinary prints, the histories they illuminate, and the spirit of collaboration they embody between artist, atelier, and gallery.](https://static-assets.artlogic.net/w_1800,h_1000,c_limit/exhibit-e/60d360873baacb4f945010a9/249a632a99e735f34d4123987ab9d733.jpeg)
![Sonya Clark 
Confederate, Surrender, 2022
Mixografia print on handmade paper
43.75 x 23.25 x 0.75 in. (111.13 x 59.06 x 1.91 cm)
Edition of 30
Clar-1114-C
 
Sonya Clark’s Confederate, Surrender centers on a seemingly quotidian object imbued with monumental historical weight: a white tea towel with red pin stripes, originally woven in Richmond, Virginia. The work examines the history of the Confederate Flag of Truce raised by General Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox (April 9, 1865).1 Fashioned from a simple kitchen dish towel, the Truce Flag signaled the collapse of soldiers fighting to preserve the institution of slavery.
By reconstructing this object in print, Clark disrupts the visual dominance of the Confederate battle flag—a symbol inextricably linked to the violent defense of Black enslavement and its persistent legacy of racism. Instead, she redirects attention to the modest textile that signaled the Confederacy’s surrender—the quiet wave of a domestic object that initiated the formal conclusion of a war waged against Black freedom.
In an interview between Sonya Clark and Paul Farber, archived on the Monument Lab website, Clark recalls her experience as a Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellow in 2011. During that time, she visited the National Museum of American History, where a long line of visitors had gathered to view the Star-Spangled Banner. In another exhibit, she encountered Abraham Lincoln’s iconic top hat, displayed within an exhibition on American presidents. In the same display case, however, she noticed a small, folded textile labeled “Confederate Flag of Truce”—a quiet but charged object placed alongside one of the nation's most revered presidential artifacts.
“It wasn’t hidden, just largely unamplified,” said Clark. “It is not that it was undiscovered, but that it hasn’t lived in public memory the way other flags have”— And so she sought to bring attention to that overlooked history.2 “I suspect most people know the Confederate flag but don’t know about the Confederate truce flag?” said Clark.   “What would it mean if we had focused our attention on the surrender and all that it implied? Where might we be now?”3
[Note to reader: American historian, museum director, and public scholar Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III curated the “Truce Flag” into the aforementioned exhibition before later serving as the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and, subsequently, as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.]
As an intimate domestic textile, a dish towel is typically handled, folded, and worn through repetitive labor. In this dimensional print—rendered to emphasize the truce flag’s specific weave structure—Sonya Clark elevates a once-utilitarian cloth into a charged historical artifact.
Clark characterizes her engagement with fraught national symbols as an “amplifying, educative intervention.”4 Rather than smoothing over tension, she preserves it through tactile processes that insist on material and historical presence. By reimagining the towel-turned-truce flag, Clark reframes surrender not as mutual reconciliation between equal parties, but as the necessary dismantling of a regime built upon racial violence.
Through this artistic gesture, Sonya Clark redirects national memory toward an object worthy of recognition, replacing Confederate iconography with a symbol of its collapse.
Clark states, “That's the power of art. That's one of the things I can do as an artist—I can use my voice to amplify this historical object and other historical objects that changed our path.”5 “Amplify” is precisely what Clark accomplishes.
Confederate, Surrender centers our attention on the exact moment a system committed to enslavement was forced to yield. By foregrounding the truce flag, Clark surfaces a history that has been muted or overlooked. In doing so, Confederate, Surrender honors not only the end of the Confederacy, but also the profoundly unfinished struggle for justice that followed emancipation—and that continues today.
-Writing by Amy Raehse unless otherwise noted.
 
Footnote
[1] Rubenstein, Harry, R., “The Gentleman’s Agreement that Ended the Civil War,” What It Means to Be American, April 3, 2015
[2] Sonya Clark and Paul Farber, Monument Lab Podcast, Episode12, March 2019. https://monumentlab.com/podcast/in-pursuit-of-the-confederate-truce-flag-with-artist-sonya-clark
[3] Sonya Clark, describing her Monument Lab Podcast interview via email, 2026
[4] Sonya Clark, describing her engagement with charged historical textiles as “an act of care,” in phone conversation, 2025
[5] Sonya Clark, describing in email, 2026
 
This work was produced at the Mixografia print atelier. For three generations, the Remba family has shaped the field of printmaking and is recognized for developing and refining their innovative three-dimensional printing technique over more than 50 years. For the past 25 years, Goya Contemporary has worked alongside our print colleagues at Mixografia. As fellow members of the IFPDA—including service on its Board of Directors—we share a commitment to the highest standards of care, ethics, and connoisseurship in printmaking, as well as a mutual dedication to creating space for artistic vision. We are proud to represent these extraordinary prints, the histories they illuminate, and the spirit of collaboration they embody between artist, atelier, and gallery.](https://static-assets.artlogic.net/w_647,h_647,c_limit/exhibit-e/60d360873baacb4f945010a9/249a632a99e735f34d4123987ab9d733.jpeg)
