Sophie Steck is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY.
She received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2015.
" My work explores memories of ordinary spaces where daily heartbreaks occur- spaces like the street, bedroom, bathroom, garden, and car. Spaces where the private dramas of romance, family and the loss of childhood innocence unfold. Through mixed-media drawings and sculptures, I reference the female nude as a symbol of both self, and the generational experience of love observed in the lives of the women who have created me. This figure is woven into dream-like imagery of everyday moments evoking the fragmented, overlapping and simplified qualities of memories charged with haunting feelings like shame, regret and longing.
I use accessible materials often found in and sourced from domestic spaces. Materials like clay, plaster, paper pulp, cut photographs, cardboard, ink, oil, and found wood panels to cast, sculpt and draw images and forms. These created and collected parts are compiled and arranged to tell stories from memories and dreams that feel heavy with unresolved emotion. Intuitive and subtly contrasting darks and lights create surreal environments accented by vivid hues. Visual representations of objects like couches, bath tubs and cast iron fences act as symbols of the home. Leaping animals and clouded horizons emphasize the complex relationship between interior spaces that contain and the freedom of growth and sky.
Functionality appears in my work as an ode to my belief that art/beauty/reflection should be accessible and present in daily life. I am interested in the deep connection that takes place between human and object when a sculpture can be worn, used as a shelf for intentional display or used to light a room. The ownership formed by interaction with an object embeds the artwork with layers of memory that exist beyond my personal story. "
