Finding Home: Art by Sofie Swann

Sorelle Gallery is pleased to showcase abstract artist Sofie Swann in a solo exhibition in our main exhibition room at 11 Church Lane beginning March 4, 2021. 

Sofie Swann is an American artist, born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Displaced at a young age due to political upheaval, her abstract paintings reflect a chaotic, yet structured space, mirroring feelings of dislocation and disconnect in her journey to find a place called home.

Swann became a refugee of her birthplace when she was fifteen years old, and the 1979 Iranian Revolution forced her to flee the country with her brother, and move to California with a family member who was already living there. The rest of her family later joined, settling in Connecticut. Sofie went on to attain a degree from Smith College, and later attended law school at Suffolk University.

While practicing law in Boston, Swann began creating art on the side. She moved to Paris for a time, but ultimately returned to Connecticut, where she worked for an asset management company and started painting more seriously. According to Swann, one day she, “Just started doing it.”

Her sources of inspiration are memory and the subconscious, drawn from personal experiences. While she says she struggled to begin painting due to her own mental clutter, she seems to have found order in color and pattern. Her paintings, which are deeply emotive but often seem cheerful, marry pattern and random uniqueness. She stacks rows of organic and geometric shapes, but each is distinctive. The repetition, she says, “...is a sort of language... It’s my inner dialogue speaking about this event with this person. And before you know it, the painting ends and the dialogue is done.”

Sofie’s solo exhibition at Sorelle Gallery, Finding Home, showcases a range of paintings from her different series. At first glance, the link between each piece may simply be drastic color combinations and full, patterned compositions, brimming with imaginative shapes and lines. But the longer one sits with any individual piece, the more apparent it becomes that the artist has created a world that is at once hectic and balanced, and more importantly, meaningful. Her signature shapes range from circular “Cupcakes” (a nod to her Iranian grandmother making such an overwhelmingly American dessert for her as a child), to her jagged edged “Lollipops,” and much in between, but Sofie also places a house somewhere in each piece. The inclusion is a fun version of Where’s Waldo for the acquainted viewer, but something of great significance for the artist, as well. “Finding a place that feels like home is very important to me,” she says of the hidden houses, “Because I lost that at an early age.”

Finding Home will run through March 26, 2021. Sofie Swann’s original artwork, as well as limited and open edition prints can also be viewed on her artist page.