Gallery Artists: Sophia Ainslie

SophiaArts@aol.com
Studio: 6 Vernon Street, Somerville, MA

Sophia Ainslie takes photograph and makes sketches of places she experiences in her immediate landscape. In the studio, she extracts and combines minute areas from multiple images that she’s collected to create a new sense of place that exists in her and around her. She approaches each piece as an unknown beginning with ink, paint, and a fine brush directly on the final surface. Her drawings combine the meeting of observation and imagination resulting in places that seem as intimate and familiar as our body, while upon another examination, appear to be tracing the contours of an unknown landscape.

Sophia was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, into one of the first non-racial art schools, started by her parents, in their home. They moved many times to accommodate the growing student body of the school that became the Johannesburg Art Foundation.

She studied for her B.F.A. at the University of South Africa, and her Teachers Training at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. In 1998, under the sponsorship of her patron Henny Kirshon, and the Art History Department at Tufts, she pursued her MFA in Boston, at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts ('01). After graduating she received the Anne and Graham Gund award to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, in Maine (‘01). Some of Sophia’s most recent exhibits outside of the Kingston Gallery include, Gallery 360, Northeastern University, Boston (’09); Ice Box Project Space, PA (’08); Fuller Craft Museum, in Brockton (’05 - ’07); Art Strand in Provincetown (’06); Hallspace, Boston (solo ’04 & ’06). She is an Associate in the Arts at the St Botolph Club, in Boston, (solo ’08). Sophia has participated in residencies such as, Triangle and ART/OMI, NY; Gasworks, London; Thapong, Botswana, Southern Africa; Thupelo, Cape Town, South Africa. Her work has been reviewed and published by the Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, ArtScope Magazine, Northeastern News, Arts Media and others. She has received grants to pursue her work from the Sugarman Foundation (USA); the Hamlyn Foundation (UK), the African Arts Trust (UK), Oppenheimer Trust (SA) and others.

Sophia currently lectures at Northeastern University and New England School of Art and Design, in Boston.

www.sophiaainslie.com

Landmarks 10
2009
materials: Archival digital print on white glossy Mylar
dimensions: 8' H x 8' W

Landmarks 6
2008
materials: India ink & acrylic on paper
dimensions: 50" H x 38" W

Landmarks 16
2008
materials: India ink & acrylic on paper
dimensions: 30" H x 22" W

Landmarks 18
2008
materials: India ink & acrylic on paper
dimensions: 30" H x 22" W

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