Exhibition Dates: November 12,2022 - January 27, 2023

Sandler Hudson Gallery is pleased to announce its first one-person exhibition for Atlanta-based artist, Krista Clark. This exhibition entitled, After Barkley, featuring works on paper and wall sculptures, merges the ongoing architectural focus of Clark’s practice with her less forthcoming admiration of basketball. This series was triggered for Clark by several events, all linked to the act of endurance and navigating the unknown: a pandemic, aging, loss, and change. 

During the time of the pandemic in April of 2020, the documentary, The Last Dance, about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls was released. The 10-part series became a “life jacket” for Clark when the world was flooded with fear. The documentary allowed Clark to live in the before times; pre-lockdown, pre-singing while washing hands and pre-Covid mortality. It brought its audience back to 1984 and to a lanky 21-year-old Jordan, whose command of the court, humanity and imperfections were all revealed with every episode. 

Clark says, “Basketball saves.”

After Barkley is inspired by the late artist, Barkley Hendricks’ basketball series, in particular, a triptych entitled, “Father, Son, And,” (1969).  Continuing with Hendricks’s overlap of religious iconography and basketball, After Barkley notates through abstraction the sacred space of the basketball court.

KRISTA CLARK was born in Burlington, Vermont and currently lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work is in the permanent collection of the High Museum of Art and MOCA GA. Clark’s work has been featured at the Studio Museum in Harlem, RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver, The United States Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, The High Museum and was included in the most recent New Museum Triennial. She is a recipient of the Artadia Award and the Working Artist Project Award with MOCA GA.  She received her BFA from Atlanta College of Art, MA from New York University and MFA from Georgia State University. Krista Clark is an Assistant Professor at Morehouse College.