This year’s Focus section promises a hotbed of up-and-coming talent, from an ambitious installation of ceramics by Sophie Wahlquist to Edgar Ramirez’s visceral works reflecting on the dystopian fabric of the city
Sophie Wahlquist (Baert Gallery, Los Angeles)
Sophie Wahlquist (b.1983) is a German emigrant to Los Angeles, and her multi-media work combines the dual sensibilities of a historically rich European lineage of figuration in painting and California’s sun-drenched prism on the natural world. For Frieze Los Angeles, Baert will be showing a solo presentation of her ceramics, paying testament to LA’s rich history of ceramic based artists. The works, which are being made especially for the occasion, will be combined to create an immersive multi-sensory environment, including plant form-inspired fountains, sconces and chandeliers. The experience will evoke the mystical power one might feel in a forest, and the works take their inspiration from romantic paintings such as Goya’s The Bewitched Man, Greek mythology, and philosophy (cf. 'Plato’s Cave') as well as Sophie’s fears and dreams that come at night, or when sight is destabilised.
