Sonia Elizabeth Barrett British

Overview
Sonia Elizabeth Barrett

Sonia Elizabeth Barrett performs Composites of plants, animals, elements and people to create interventions that presence their objectification and commodification, she also thinks about how to change perceptions of phenomena in “nature” that are a given. The work seeks to create new questions where there was a kind of certainty that has to do with the hegemony of normative wester European values. 

Born in the UK of Jamaican and German parentage Sonia Elizabeth Barrett grew up in Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Cyprus and the UK. She studied literature at the University of St Andrews Scotland and her MFA at Transart Institute Berlin/New York. 

 

Her work unpacks the boundaries between the Determined and the determining with a focus on race and gender, She makes sculptural works so she can run her hands alone the fissures and manifest strategies for multiple compatible existences and mourn.

 

Her sculptural practice includes place making with a view to assembling communities under the threat of climate to (Re) claim space as well as instituting permanently.

 

Sonia is a MacDowell fellow and has been recognised by the Premio Ora prize, NY Art-Slant showcase for sculpture and the Neo Art Prize. She has exhibited by the National Gallery of Jamaica, 32 degrees East Gallery, Kampala, Uganda, the Heinrich Böll Institute Germany, the British Library, The Museum of Derby, and the Kunsthaus Nürnberg. Her work has been shown at a number of galleries including the OCCCA California, the NGBK Berlin, Tete Berlin, The Format Contemporary in Milan and Basel and the Rosenwald Wolf Gallery Philadelphia.

 

Her works have been published in the International Review of African American Art, Black History 365 Journal, Kunstforum International, Protocollum, ELSE journal and the Contemporary & Platform.  She is a co-initiator of the AIPCC in Bavaria.

Works
Biography
Sonia Elizabeth Barrett

awards, EXHIBITIONS & residencies


Selected Awards and Bursaries

2021 Yale Artist Fellowship

2021  Juried Member Royal Society of Sculptors, England

2020  CCCADI’s Institute for Racial and Social Justice in Arts & Culture, NY USA.

2020  Earth Seed Scholarship The Black Permaculture Network, USA

2017  Boss Harlan Foundation Stipend, USA, University of Minnesota.

2015  TINA Award Winner

2014  Leon Levy Foundation grant recipient, USA

2014  David and Rosamund Putmann Transportation Fund, MacDowell Colony, NH, USA

2013  Emergency Craft Award Finalist, Aspex Gallery, Plymouth, England.

2013  Shortlisted for Neo Art Prize, Bolton, England.

2012  Selected as a winner of the  Premio-Ora Contemporary Art Prize, Italy

2012  Selected as Artslant award winner for the showcase for Sculpture, NY, USA

2009  Scholarship for MFA program at the Transart Institute Krems, Austria 

1989  Bursary to attend the Royal St. Catherine’s Conference of Commonwealth Arts                  Windsor, England 

 

Selected Exhibitions and Residencies​

2022

  • Wolfsberg Contemporary Art Museum “Planetary Feminisms”, Germany

   with What the hELL she doin? Collective

  • Selected for MOSAF Commission Deptford, London

  • MOSAF Exhibition The Shipwright’s Hall,  London

  • Yale Artist Fellowship Spring 2022

  • Up Projects Digital Windrush Commission “Rush Me” London,

  • Black Futures Fair, Black Geographers, Birmingham, Workshop leader

  • Duke University Centre for Documentary Studies, USA Workshop leader

  • “I am Mili” Hase 24, Osnabruck Germany

  • Shortlisted for the Gladstone Park, Brent Artist Intervention.

  • The National Gallery, lecture on Hogarth 

  • Texts and article for Tate Britain Gallery and Publication, Hogarth

​

2021

  • Solo Show in conjunction with Zelda, and Arcade Gallery, London.

  • Inaugural fellow of DEAR Program Residency Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute supported by the Altman Foundation, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and The New York Community Trust.

  • Artist Talk, Art History Department, University of St Andrews, Scotland. 

  • Digital Commission, Up Projects, London

  • Longlisted for Windrush Sculptural Commission, Waterloo Station London.

  • Installation at the Ondatjee Theatre RGS London.

  • “Roots Culture Identity” TUC Race Relations Committee and Artists' Union England

  • Solo Show at The Royal Geographical Society, London commissioned by CARICUK (Creative approaches to race and in/security in the Caribbean and the UK) led by Dr Patricia Noxolo

  • CaFA Art Fair Bridgetown, Barbados

  • “Return of the GIF!” White Page Gallery, Anonymous Waves.

 

2020

  • Prizm Art Fair, Miami, Calabar Gallery, NY

  • Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture, now an online exhibition called "WATERGATE - From water to land, from land to water", Croatia.

  • Selected for the International Social Distancing Festival.com 

  • Fellowship CAT+SR Nairobi, Kenya.

  • Lecturer Drawing Medicine Department, University of Southampton, England

  • Solo Show: “Sky” Villa Romana, Florence, Italy. 

  • “Womanism" Circle Gallery in conjunction with Ostrale Biennale, Nairobi

  • Selected for the Mcollective Feral Practice at Chisenhale Studio, England

  • Selected for Test Card Project, with live Cinema UK “Hyperlink” England

  • Venice Agenda's online exhibition "Platform Art Project", commissioned by invitation.

  • Selected for Residency at West Dean College of Art and Conservation, England to consider "Whose Heritage?" 

Exhibitions
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