Image courtesy of Sonya Clark and Lisa Sette Gallery.

Octoroon

Artist Sonya Clark (American, born 1967)

CultureAmerican

Date2018

MediumCanvas and thread

DimensionsTotal: 85 3/8 × 38 1/4 × 2 in. (216.9 × 97.2 × 5.1 cm)
Canvas only: 67 3/8 × 38 1/4 × 1 1/4 in. (171.1 × 97.2 × 3.2 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number2020.6

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 200

Label TextSonya Clark American, b. 1967 Octoroon, 2018 Canvas and thread Octoroon, the title of this two-dimensional fiber sculpture of the United States flag, is an antiquated and discriminatory term referring to the nineteenth-century Jim Crow racial classification system. The law stated anyone with one African American great-grandparent was classified as African American. Thus, octoroon referred to anyone with one-eighth African American ancestry. Clark, however, had one Scottish great-grandmother but would never have been considered White as the reverse racial classifications did not exist. Octoroon depicts the U.S. flag in eight sections, a physical manifestation of this racist historical law. Clark believes fiber is a material embedded with meaning and history. She centers her practice on using materials like cotton to reference its relationship to U.S. history, material production, race, and craft traditions. In Octoroon, she stitched the bare canvas with threads and braided the material together to resemble hair while leaving other threads loose. The cotton threads also represent African American women’s hair and the long-standing sociopolitical challenges surrounding it. Museum purchase 2020.6ProvenancePurchased from Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix, AZ, March 2020.Exhibition History"Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend," National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, March 3 - June 27, 2021. "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture," Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, November 8, 2024 – September 14, 2025.Published ReferencesElizabeth Lynch, ed., _Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend_, exh. cat., National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, 2021, 112. Karen Lemmey, Tobias Wofford & Grace Yasumura,_The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture_exh. cat., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, 2025, p.126. Valerie Cassel Oliver,_Anonymous was a Woman_"Womanist Tendencies: Black Women Artists in Their Mothers Gardens"_,Grey Art Museum, New York, NY, 2025, p.67, fig.28.