Today we’d like to introduce you to Sofia Plater.
Sofia, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Experimentation plays a huge role in my practice. Even as a small child, I would always have little tests going with different objects or materials I found. My early custom of collecting odds and ends has led me to my personal way of working on my art practice. I think of my studio as a kind of science laboratory. As I work, I have many different “experiments” going all at once, with miscellany projects on every surface available. One corner will have thick mediums drying for days, while other areas are filled with tiny odds and ends waiting to be affixed in their final position. I enjoy challenging the materials to find out what qualities can be built upon, reworked, and multiplied to create something new and unexpectedly intriguing. Then, the act of creating takes me in many different directions, as I frequently discover new visions as I go along.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My art is largely inspired by the environment and witnessing the free-forming textures and structures that exist and grow naturally. My work features design that resemble naturally growing forms but are mostly composed of human-made and mass-produced materials—representing the real and the synthetic intertwined. I utilize these manufactured materials and by-products that are destined to inhabit landfills, as a means of creating art. The found materials are scavenged from the garbage, recycle centers, yard sales, and dumps. Through these representations of natural structures, I intend to bring awareness of the fragility of nature and what our consumeristic society is doing to the planet, especially due to pollution and plastic waste. I hope that when people see my work, and recognize common objects within, that they consider how they use and discard of their own excess everyday objects, and maybe decide to repurpose them for a creation of their own.
Every work I make has a specific meaning depending on what discarded materials I use. For example, in my piece “Tilting Totems,” each cylindrical layer was molded from a found plastic recyclable container. In our consumeristic heavy society, thousands of different sizes and shapes of “take out” containers are manufactured to suit a human’s every need. The fact that the different layers of the totems fit together in a smooth continual column, conveys just how many different sized plastic goods we have available to us. I find these “recyclables” in the trash, use them as molds for cement, and then afterwards put them in the proper recycling bin.
The sterotype of a starving artist scares away many potentially talented artists from pursuing art – any advice or thoughts about how to deal with the financial concerns an aspiring artist might be concerned about?
There are a lot of inexpensive ways to build work, you don’t always have to buy pricey new art supplies. I am a huge utilizer of found objects and scrounging though recycle centers. I find it much more rewarding and inspiring to work with discarded materials, as I am bringing them a new life, and using something that has a unique story. Other than the artmaking process, just apply to as many free submissions shows as you can, you never know where they will lead!
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
To see several of my large-scale works in person, my newest show is coming up this fall in Newton, MA. I am currently co-curating a really unique group show, called The Webster Court Project. Myself and a group of 20 artists are covering an entire 1980’s Victorian mansion, that is set for demolition in 2019, in immersive art of all different mediums. The event is in early October, in Newton, MA, and includes live music, food, and drinks. To find out more, please visit our event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/251487595393642/permalink/296579777551090/
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sofiaplater.com
- Email: sofia.plater@gmail.com
- Instagram: sofia_plater_art
Image Credit:
I took these photos myself
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