Image credit: Michelle Tran.
Sophia Hewson is a clinical Psychotherapist (2023), and a member at The Australian Centre for Psychoanalysis in Melbourne (2021), she was a Ramsay Art Prize finalist in 2019, completed a six-month residency at Residency Unlimited in New York (2015), is a recipient of the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art international project (2014), and was selected by Art Collector Magazine as one of Australia’s 50 most collectable artists in 2011. Since graduating with First Class Honours from The Victoria College of the Arts in 2007, Hewson has completed numerous solo exhibitions and research projects. Including, ‘Untitled (viewer as patient)’ -where she conducted over 50 private therapy sessions in the gallery space 2018/19, ‘Untitled (Sleeping) 2017’ -where she slept in the gallery space as a performance work for the duration of the exhibition, ‘Untitled (“are you ok bob”)’ – were she shot notorious video work/rape representation, and ‘Untitled (Hildale)’ -where she entered notorious FLDS cult community for 10 days in Utah (2015). “I am working, as a multidisciplinary artist, to generate ways of speaking about the body that are alternative to patriarchal ideology encoded in art, law, language and economy. Thus I use my body in my work as a means to inhabit a new subject position alternative to these singular idealities.” – Hewson