Temporal Geography

Sophie Ko (Tbilisi, 1981) lives and works in Milan. At the heart of her artistic practice lies the concept of time, which is explored in its intense symbolic interaction with the materials she employs – mostly ashes of burnt images and pure pigments – and the images created. The change and instability of materials in relation to the flow of time are some of the constants of her artistic research. The Temporal Geographies, for example, provide an exemplification of a series of works eternally suspended between the act of creation and that of destruction, where the image is constantly subjected to a continuous process of modification through the slow and relentless collapse of the material of which it is made. Conceived through a conceptual and formal negotiation between sculpture and painting, these works stage “a bond made of weight, pressure, gravity, and the destruction of time on images, but also of formation, depth, return, and rebirth with respect to the passage of time.” Meaningful  metaphors of the caducity and mutability of existence, her works recall the trajectory of life that we trace, parallel to a slow but persistent collapsing movement.

Recent solo shows include: Italian Cultural Institute, London (2024); Estorick collection of Italian modern art, London (2024); Renata Fabbri, Milan (2015, 2018 and 2023); Contemporary Locus, Bergamo (2023); Postmasters Rome, with Marta Kucsora (2023); Museo Marino Marini, Florence (2022); EAST Galerie, Strasbourg (2022); Galleria de’ Foscherari, Bologna (2016 and 2021–22); BUILDINGBOX, Milan (2021); BUILDING Gallery, Milan (2020); Ca’Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice (2019); The OpenBox, Milan (2018).  She has participated in group exhibitions at Saudi Arabian Museum of Contemporary Art (SAMoCA), Riyadh Saudi Arabia (2024); Premio di Grafica Santa Croce, Santa Croce sull’Arno, Pisa; Studio la Città, Verona; Societé Interludio, Turin; Circolo, Milan; Villa Croce Museo d’arte Contemporanea, Genova (2023); Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio (2022); Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Castelbasso (2021); Palazzo Barbò Torre Pallavicina, Bologna (2021); MAC – Contemporary Art Museum, Lissone (2021); and Renata Fabbri, Milan (2020), among others. In 2016, Sophie Ko won the Lissone Prize for Painting organized by MAC – Contemporary Art Museum, Lissone.