Sonya Yong James Shapeshifter, 2025
Presented by Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, GA
My work explores the threshold between the physical and the mythic. Through weaving with horsehair – a material that holds both strength and vulnerability – I create sculptural textiles that serve as tapestries for memory, instinct, and transformation. The horse is one of the most symbolically charged animals. The animal world and the spiritual world draw on mythology and folklore. They suggest the interconnectedness with everything and one another.
Horsehair, once a part of a living body, carries an ancient intimacy. Weaving becomes a meditation on Jungian archetypes: the Shadow, the Anima, and the Self. These forms are not abstract to me – they are lived, embodied, and carried forward through gesture and repetition. Each thread becomes a strand of myth; each knot, a symbolic binding of the unconscious and the visible world.
The work is both a ritual and a reckoning. In the interplay of organic texture and symbolic depth, I seek to map the sacred onto the everyday. What emerges is not merely a woven object, but a portal – an invitation to engage with the unseen architecture of the psyche and collective archetypes.
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-five years and has been the recipient of several grants including the Artadia grant in 2019 and was a nominee for the 2023 United States Artists Fellowship award.
Her work is held in numerous collections including the High Museum of Art., Art in Embassies and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. James has 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. James has received grants for residencies at the Atlanta Contemporary and Mass MOCA. James was included in the Atlanta Biennial in 2024.
Works on view include:
Ring of fire (jaguar eclipse in October), 2024
37 x 26 x 2 inches
Horsehair and hand dyed wool and cotton
Spellbound (year of the snake), 2025
64 x 35 x 3 inches
Horsehair and hand dyed cotton, wool and embroidery
Shapeshifter, 2025
63 x 106 x 6 inches
Horsehair and hand dyed cotton, wool and embroidery