During the art residency at Pilotenkueche Leipzig the curator Julia Polo had an artist talk with all resident artists in order to write a curatorial text on their practice. Here are some excerpts from the text. Thank you Julia!
Sofia Fresia: upstream strokes
Torino-based artist Sofia Fresia subtly uncovers vertices between the self and the world as we know it. Through skillful oil paintings, her works project guileless reflections that emanate from personal experience. Addressing individuals’ place within their environment, Sofia’s work suggests a conflicting sense of belonging to a deeply troubled planet. Sofia points at two junctures in her timeline that drew her closer to artistic creation. Impelled by an autonomous push, she reminisces on the fifteen year-old that innocently turned to drawing to combat boredom.
Inevitable rhythms in her adult life muted her artistic pursuits for years. It wasn’t until she finalized her studies as a nurse that Sofia returned to painting, this time as a way to redirect her life. Unfulfilled by the nursing path she’d taken, she entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Torino. Invested in perfecting her technique, a budding epiphany began to sprout. When realizing the communion between skillful technique and the ability to construct sturdy statements with her paintings, Sofia began to think of herself as a potential artist. Today, after four years devoted to painting, she speaks with a clear-minded purpose.
Realizing a broader whole.
Deeply moved by surrealist currents, Sofia is driven to speak through figurative paintings in ways that feel “difficult to verbalize”. Touching on how individuals struggle to find fulfillment in a frenetic and demanding society, Sofia alludes to common existential questions shared with the viewer. “It’s a good way to let people feel they are not alone in what they’re feeling”. In a persistent search to rediscover the twinings of her practice, she affirms that painting is an inner dialogue to better understand herself and connect with others. The solitary troubles she references in her paintings often collide with communal strains related to the urgent environmental crisis, an overarching problem that eclipses us all. Such convergence underlines the parallelisms between the self and the world, and contextualizes them in relation to a broader whole.
Julia Polo
You can read the full text here: Sofia Fresia: upstream strokes
