Sonya Kelliher-Combs

Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq/Koyukon) is a mixed-media visual artist whose family hails from the North Slope and Interior of Alaska. Her work focuses on the changing North and our relationship to nature and each other. Through visual art, community engagement, curation and advocacy, Kelliher-Combs works to create opportunities to feature Indigenous voices and contemporary artwork that inform and encourage social action. Traditional women’s work taught her to appreciate the intimacy of intergenerational knowledge and material histories. These experiences and skills allow Kelliher-Combs to examine connections between Western and Indigenous cultures. She lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska.

Kelliher-Combs received a BFA from University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and an MFA from Arizona State University. She is a recipient of the Anchorage Cultural Council’s Mayor’s Awards for the Arts, the State of Alaska Governor’s Award for the Arts, Rasmuson Foundation Fellowship, Eiteljorg Fellowship, Native Arts and Cultures Artist Fellowship, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters and Sculptors Grant. Her work can be found in numerous private and public collections including the Alaska State Museum, National Museum of the American Indian, Anchorage Museum, Eiteljorg Museum, British Royal Museum, Institute of American Indian Art Museum of Contemporary Native Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.