about

Sophia Olivieri is an emerging artist working on Wallumattagal land, having recently graduated with a BFA from UNSW Art and Design. She specialises in contemporary modes of painting and sculpture, combining textiles, embroidery and unconventional materials such as prosthetic silicone within her works. Her pieces often seek to question the naturalisation of gender and female sexuality while subtly toying with notions of public versus private space and bodies. In many of her pieces she focuses on skin as a conceptual and material surface, coquettishly threading together notions of gender inscription and the skin’s negotiation between the internal and external.

Filmic and archival imagery are also utilised as a tool throughout her practice, discussing the ways in which images, tropes and narratives are naturalised to us through the media, formulating our understandings of gender dynamics and intimacy. Other works of hers also expand to question other cultural norms and customs. Olivieri regurgitates imagery onto unconventional mediums and surfaces such as textiles and tiling, investigating different avenues in which the iconography of these images can be reframed, disturbed and decontextualised to create an interactive experience for audiences.