Sonya Clark, Plain Weave, Plas­tic combs and thread, 2008. COURTESY REGINALD LEWIS MUSEUM.

Mate­r­ial Girls, the Regi­nald F. Lewis Museum’s exhi­bi­tion explor­ing the cre­ations of eight con­tem­po­rary black female artists, closes on Sun­day, Oct. 16, after an eight month run.

Curated by Michelle Joan Wilkin­son, the museum’s direc­tor of col­lec­tions and exhi­bi­tions, the exhi­bi­tion focuses on artists whose work incor­po­rates both tra­di­tional and unex­pected mate­ri­als. Hair, beads, rub­ber tires, and plas­tic bags make up some of these sculp­tural and mixed-media works, while in other cases, more typ­i­cal mate­ri­als, like tis­sue paper, play a lead­ing role. The exhi­bi­tion ref­er­ences every­thing from house­hold crafts like sewing and quilt­ing to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion to ances­tral con­nec­tions to Africa. Three of the artists–Maya Freelon Asante, Maren Has­singer, and Joyce J. Scott–are Bal­ti­more residents.

Tags: black female artists, material girls, reginald lewis