Alisha Sofia

Queens of the Caucasus

January 18 – March 1, 2020

Alisha Sofia
Queens of the Caucasus
January 18 – March 1, 2020

Alisha Sofia’s practice focuses on the female form as both creator and artifact of visual identity. Her subjects, partially or completely nude, are surrounded by a rich symbolic lexicon of food, plants, and animals. Refusing objectification they are calmly defiant, their power, strength, and intimate detail promote engagement instead of consumption. Sofia’s technical strength and command of her materials allows the subtleties of each personality to quietly emerge from her paintings.

In Queens of the Caucasus, Sofia draws from Byzantine masks, Greco-Roman sculptures, and living faces encountered on her own travels in the Caucasus region. She gathered raw pigments, powdering and mixing them in the studio to create her palette. Terra cotta, rhyolite, greywacke, and charcoal create the silver necklaces, cypress, dates, and sea buckthorn adorning her subjects. These forms, often romanticized and sanitized for a Western audience, are revitalized through Sofia’s insight as an Armenian American. Her heritage allows her to peer behind the traditional structured aesthetic to uncover a deeper understanding of the pagan roots of the region. 

Alisha Sofia (b. 1987, Los Angeles) attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, completing her degree at Art Center College of Design in 2009. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.