Themoulla Sofroniou
Mixed Media Artist, Ba Hons Diploma in Acting
My name is Themoulla Sofroniou – I am a mixed media artist, born and raised in London as a Greek-Cypriot and native Greek speaker. I am proud to welcome you to my website where I showcase and invite you to explore 3 distinct types of mixed media art that I specialise in.
In 1991, I received a BA (Hons) in Sculpture from the Polytechnic of East London. I later trained as an actress at Mountview Theatre School and later completed a second acting course at City Lit, earning diplomas from both. About 11 years ago I did some classes in bookbinding and combined it with my mixed media art.
I have been involved in the arts for 35 years, including since I commenced training.
I have spent a great deal of this time producing work that involves experimenting with materials and tools that I use to execute the work enabling me to push the limits of material boundaries.
I want the spectators to meet me by visually hearing me when they view what I have produced and absorb the narration I have encapsulated in the work. Many works are deliberately consciously produced but have profound subconscious content too and I strongly believe so much more of one’s life’s experiences is extracted from the latent subconscious content.
I am very interested in the negotiation that occurs between multi-disciplinary art and the myriad of marriages that can result from mixing media. For example, I am currently working simultaneously on all three art styles I produce. One influences the other: a box sculpture frequently has wooden lids that open like a book to reveal contents, the books lend themselves to folded book structures and these in return respond to becoming integral contents of a box sculpture and the floral plastic/textile pieces.
I relentlessly work like this until I produce recipes made of a huge variety of paraphernalia and art materials that culminates in a body of work. Additionally, this is an ongoing dialogue between unexpected ideas and the materiality of objects.
Light is of great interest in my work, especially in the box sculptures. It does much more than illuminate, it is a metaphor and even an emotion – It can bathe its subjects in a glow, a highlight. Whether the light is artificial or natural, it can sculpt everything it touches by emphasising form, creating shadow, and silhouette; it can dramatize as it lifts areas and it can also make us pay more attention as it captures its subject I believe like nothing else can.
The juxtaposition of objects to create chimerical unions or hybrids exhilarates me as it captures the very feeling contained within me whilst making the work. I keep an apothecary of materials, much like a library that I can source from. Lost, overlooked, the marginalised and neglected in the inanimate reveal latent narratives when you give them a new meaning in your work.
Utilising lost, discarded objects are a kind of metaphor and allow me to create a new identity where I transfer myself into the objects as I orchestrate them into meaningful arrangements and engagements with each other.
Thank you for taking the time to meet me.