Sharon Norwood

My work often deals with issues of identity where I use the line as a way to explore complex relationships. My aim is to create works that challenge our passive ways of looking. The subject of my work comes from my own narrative with social, political and cultural content, past and present. I am interested in creating a dialogue that speak in nuanced ways to issues of race, gender, beauty and class. In my work the curly line takes on special importance. The curly line at times become a metaphor for the black body, and at other times it lives within a decorative, ornate esthetic that connects us back to the formal language of drawing. I enjoy the shift between hair and line, how at one moment the work is read as hair while at other times it is simply a beautiful mark. The line serves dually as gestural mark making and as signifier for curly afro hair.

-- Sharon Norwood

Sharon Norwood’s curly ornate landscapes transforms the surfaces of found objects. Her work often deals with issues of identity using hair to explore colonial power structures. As an artist of Jamaican heritage her work spans several media and includes painting and ceramic. Norwood holds a BFA in Painting from the University of South Florida and an MFA in studio Art from Florida State University. Sharon has been awarded residencies at PILOTENKUECHE in Leipzig, ArtScape Toronto, ROKTOWA in Kingston Jamaica, and in the United States, at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hambidge Center, and the McColl Center in Charlotte North Carolina. Norwood’s exhibition record includes solo exhibitions, group collaborations, and site-specific installations, she has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in museums and gallery spaces, and is the recipient of numerous creative fellowships and awards.