UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach OVR 2020: Sophie Wahlquist

Sophie Wahlquist’s work explore themes of growth and reproduction. She is aiming for an image of the psychological states of humans, raising questions about their role in this world. Social anxieties in an increasingly individualized society are reoccurring concepts which inform the shapes and figures in her work.

Wahlquist’s paintings depart from a state of mind rather than from a narrative. Playing with different genres of painting and medium, new gestures and perspectives reverse existing ideas. She like to negotiate the level to which absence can be replaced by clarity of something intangible or how the depiction of something recognizable can become a trigger for imagination.

Flowers become portraits of groups rather than a still life and I can relate to a breastfeeding monkey as much as I feel the estrangement and separation I find between people. – Sophie Wahlquist