A Check-In with MFA alum Sharon Norwood

Sharon Norwood, FSU Studio Art MFA 2018 is currently living and working in Savannah, GA. Sharon has had an exciting second half of 2022 that started with a 4-week residency at the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada.

These are the highlights of her exhibition calendar through the fall. An interview and image of her work are included in Donald A. Clark and Chosani Elaine Dean’s book “Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists”. A traveling exhibition was curated in connection with the book entitled A Gathering: Work from “Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists”. Norwood presented an artist talk, Black Bodies and Metaphor in Clay, at the Northern Clay Center in conjunction with the exhibition. The show debuted at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis this fall and will travel to the Crocker Museum of Art in Sacramento, CA and the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield, MA between May 2023 and March 2024.

Norwood’s work has been exhibited in two venues in Toronto. Sharon’s work was shown at Art Toronto, Canada’s largest art fair, from October 27-30. She was represented by Toronto gallery The Next Contemporary.

Sharon’s work is included in Dis/Mantle, an immersive installation at the Spadina History Museum curated by Umbereene and Gordon Shadrach. Norwood describes, “My current installation that celebrates and centers the life of Mrs. Louisa Pipkins. Mrs. Pipkins was able to garner a measure of agency over her own labour, and worked as a laundress in this space. Like many enslaved Africans, Mrs. Pipkins made her way to via the Underground Railroad to Canada”.

Keep up with all that Sharon is doing @sharonnorwoodartist on Instagram.