Untitled

Nannette Acker Clark

About the Print

From the Artist

My work is inspired by contemporary fiber and sculpture concepts, various cultural design traditions, and my personal experiences as an African American woman growing up in this country. After years of making realistic, figurative sculpture, I enrolled in graduate school and began working with fiber and mixed media. During this time I began utilizing strong colors, cross-cultural symbols and intricate patterns, and developed a new, very different style of sculpture.

My current body of work, entitled “Four Moments of the Sun” explores the connection between physical and spiritual communication. The series is divided into four parts that present my view of the spiritual stages of life as expressed by the Kongo People of Zaire. Dawn is the beginning, Noon the flourishing of life and the point of ascending power, Sunset the end of life, and Midnight the place where those who have lived well dwell until they return again, in the Dawn, as succeeding generations.
— From https://www.leeway.org/grantees/nannette_acker_clark_bba_99, accessed 7/6/2021


The abstractions of Nannette Acker Clark are rooted in her African American heritage and focus on her concern with color and spatial relationships. Untitled is an offset lithograph in which the background is printed green. Attached are six rows of patterned, undulating, and intense waves of color that interlock like a puzzle. 
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records: Painted Images/Sculptural Editions exhibition (October 1, 1998–January 9, 1999) 

 

Nannette Acker Clark

American
1948 Philadelphia, PA
About the Artist

Philadelphia sculptor Nannette Acker Clark earned a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), Philadelphia, and an MFA from University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

Clark has exhibited widely at institutions throughout the United States, including the American Craft Museum (now the Museum of Arts and Design), New York City; Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; American Jazz Museum, Kansas City, MO; African American Museum in Philadelphia; and PAFA. Her work is inspired by Congolese philosophical understandings, and related practices, that see the sun as a metaphor for the soul.
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records

Curriculum Connections

Suggested Topics for Algebra I and Geometry

Algebra I:

The resources provided can be used early on in an Algebra class to help students think in multiple dimen- sions. The artworks can be used to demonstrate illusions intended as a design element or to help students imagine space constructed or deconstructed from forms or shapes within a space. The ability to visualize concepts through art can make advanced math more accessible to students early on.

Geometry:

Some may want to use images in the Artura.org library to explore more complex uses of advanced math to create the illusions of space and solve spatial dynamic issues for three-dimensional works such as stand-alone sculpture and site-specific, public artworks. The laying of bricks or ceramic tiles is a skilled craft that can involve creativity and innovation in bricks or tiles are set and many available options in color, design, and texture are used. Sculptors such as Melvin Edwards, Richard Hunt, and John T. Scott have consistently used higher math concepts in the creation of large scale, space-defining public art.

Questions to Consider