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“Many questions arise from human universals. Human beings share the need for protection, the drive for connection, and the pleasures of touch. We are toolmaking, problem-solving animals, and social, sensory creatures. Cloth embodies all of these characteristics. The story of textiles is cumulative and shared, a human story, a tapestry woven from countless different threads. Working with textiles, found objects, and clay, I investigate themes of identity and memory in my interior and shared life. I have become intrigued by the power of the ordinary, the strong emotions that are evoked and sustained by anything as simple or as complex as a shared experience, a vivid color, a dear person seen once again, or a new landscape never seen before. Such things taken seriously, will reveal their unexpected significance and bring a sense of the extraordinary to the ordinary.
The Pleasure Was All Mine is dedicated to the small things in life often overlooked in the grand scheme of things that can shape and contribute to major events in our life. Some of the stories the objects tell are of chance encounters or represent possibilities of a completely new way of thinking or appreciation of the mundane. These sculptures bring together a narrative as I follow the trail of the self through everyday life, gather memories and traces, work with materials and fragments, and interweave loose threads before the memory or story is forgotten.”
about the artist
Sonya Yong James (b. Knoxville, Tennessee) lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. She received a BFA from Georgia State University where she focused on printmaking and sculpture. James has exhibited nationally and internationally for the past twenty years and has been the recipient of several grants including the Artadia grant in 2019 including being a nominee for the 2023 United States Artists Fellowship award. James has also received grants for residencies at the Atlanta Contemporary and Mass MOCA. She has an upcoming research residency in Mexico City for 2024.
Her work is held in numerous collections including Art in Embassies and has been exhibited in galleries and museums such as MOCA GA, The Minnesota Museum of American Art, UAB’s Abroms-Engels Institute for the Visual Arts, and the Ogden Museum of Art in New Orleans. Sonya Yong James is represented by Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, GA.