23 July – 9 August 2020
about the exhibition
Printmaker Sophia Szilagyi uses digital printmaking to create scenes of re-interpreted memory and experience. In her multi-layered compositions, Sophia explores the relationship between fiction and non-fiction, challenging our perceptions of reality and the effects of physical sensation and emotional response on memory. A walk in the gardens is inspired by two celebrated Australian gardens: The Sydney Botanical Gardens and Musk Cottage in Victoria. Sophia’s monochromatic prints, based on the Sydney gardens, question reality through her masterful manipulation of light and tone. In contrast, her Musk Cottage series incorporates colour as well as texture, to create romantic intoxicating images imbued with emotion. Independent Melbourne arts writer and curator¸ Marguerite Brown, observes of Sophia’s work that she uses “an amplified filmic use of light to carve out variegated foliage in intricate detail. In the Musk Cottage images her characteristic use of layering creates heady atmospheric affects for which her work is known”.
Sophia Szilagyi graduated with First Class Honours from the School of Art and Culture at RMIT in 2000. Since graduating, Sophia has held a number of solo shows as well as participating in many group exhibitions across Australia. Her work has been selected in numerous print awards including the Fremantle Print Prize (2007), the Banyule Award for Works on Paper (2011, 2009 and 2007) and most recently, St Kevins’ Art Prize (2018). In 2005, Sophia was commissioned to complete a print for the Print Council of Australia and her work is represented in collections including Artbank, Burnie Regional Art Museum, La Trobe Regional Art Gallery, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Queensland University of Technology and the State Library of Victoria.
