Online Patron Studio Visit:
Sonya Kelliher-Combs
Sonya Kelliher-Combs
Thurs, Dec 2, 2021
6–7 pm
Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Polar Bear Curl, 2017. Acrylic polymer, polar bear fur, nylon thread, steel pins, overall (irregular): 17 1/2 × 124 1/4 × 3 1/2 in. (44.5 × 315.6 × 8.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Avo Samuelian and Hector Manuel Gonzalez 2020.156a-ii
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Virtually visit the studio of Whitney Collection artist Sonya Kelliher-Combs, based in Anchorage, Alaska. Through her mixed media painting and sculpture, Kelliher-Combs offers a chronicle of the ongoing struggle for self-definition and identity in the Alaskan context. Her use of synthetic, organic, traditional, and modern materials moves beyond oppositions between Western/Native culture, self/other, and man/nature to examine the interrelationships and interdependence of these concepts while also questioning accepted notions of beauty.
Sonya Kelliher-Combs was raised in the Northwest Alaska community of Nome. Her BFA degree is from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her MFA is from Arizona State University. Kelliher-Combs’s work has been shown in numerous individual and group exhibitions in Alaska, elsewhere in the United States, and internationally. She is a recipient of the prestigious United States Arts Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Fellowship, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, Rasmuson Fellowship, and is a recipient of the 2005 Anchorage Mayors Arts Award and 2010 Alaska Governor’s Individual Artist Award.