Sofia Mascate
Wordrap and Studiovisit @ Creative Cluster, 29.1.2025
My chosen artistic medium is …
…painting.
My art in three words…
That’s hard, but I would say, self-aware figurative painting.
My artistic practice revolves around, respectively, a recurring theme in my work is…
I spend a lot of time observing and researching Baroque painting, particularly still life from this period. From these works, I take ideas, tropes, and objects that I rework in my practice, painting them with a contemporary point of view.
I draw inspiration for my art from...
…not only historical painting and the Old Masters, but also from less visible narratives in art history and works by painters outside the traditional canon. At the same time, the way we engage with images today, especially through the internet, also plays a significant role in my work. For example, meme culture and its mechanics of repetition share parallels to certain modes of referentiality in painting. This is something I consider while working, since I spend a lot of time looking at screens—like everyone does these days. This influences how one sees and experiences painting.
When it comes to materials, it's important to me that...
I mostly paint with oil—it’s my main medium—but I'm also very open to experimenting with different materials. For example, I've worked with weaving, which I see as another form of painting, but using threads instead of paint. More recently, I've been working with painting in the expanded field. During a residency in Portugal, I worked on a project where I painted on glass. The pieces were made with different layers of glass, playing with depth and breaking the relationship between figure and ground, since you can see the painting from both sides, front and back. They are three dimensional pieces. This was a very interesting experience, not just because of the new material, but because it made me think about painting from a perspective that isn't strictly frontal nor linear. It has been a new development in my practice.
My studio in the Creative Cluster is a place where...
…I am painting. Where I can come and organize my thoughts and work on a new body of work. So far, it's been really nice to be here—it's very calm, very bright, and very comfortable.
My greatest artistic achievement so far…
I'm quite happy with my graduation show, titled Gilded Cage, which was shown at New Jörg in June 2024. I felt it had a well-rounded concept, and I am proud of the work I made for it. It felt like an important step forward.
The transition from studying to becoming an independent artist has been for me...
Honestly, the transition has been relatively smooth. I think it's partly because the Master in Critical Studies already required a certain level of independence from students. So, having more time now has actually felt like a positive thing. Plus, having this space to work has definitely made the transition much easier than it might have been otherwise.
The feedback that has influenced me the most…
It’s hard to pinpoint one specific piece of feedback. During my studies, every exchange I had—whether with professors, peers, or mentors—was valuable in its own way. You´re always learning, so I don´t think there's one thing that stands out as the most important. It’s more about the combination of everything coming together.
If I could give one piece of advice to other emerging artists, it would be...
When you graduate, there's a lot of pressure to apply for grants and artists get caught up in this hustle mindset. But I think it’s important to step back from that and think more long-term—how to make an artistic practice sustainable and in continuous development, rather than letting all the organizational work take over. I know this is something a lot of people struggle with, myself included. So, I think it's important to give yourself permission to relax about it.
An artistic idea or project I'm excited to realize…
I am excited to conclude my residency project. I have spent a month at ArtWorks in Porto, a factory for artistic production. There, artists-in-residence can use surplus industrial materials left over from production. During my time there, I painted on glass as a response to the oeuvre of the Portuguese painter Josefa de Óbidos. The critical reception of her work has been affected by a systematic disregard for female practices and its association with the domestic. Her work deserves greater visibility, as do many overlooked practices in history. We are currently planning an exhibition of the works produced in the factory, and I’m looking forward to it. It would be incredible to exhibit these works alongside those of Josefa de Óbidos, since her work has been so influential for me and is the foundation of the project.