Sophie Utikal

Sophie Utikal’s practice always departs from her own brown body as an anchor point and a feeling that needs to find translation into a scene. Sensual worlds of pastel colors incite the audience to be vulnerable with one another. Utikal’s hand-sewn textile works reach impressive sizes, each measuring several meters wide, and come to own the exhibition space by dominating it with softness. Dedicated to those whose biographies are usually underrepresented, the works always focus on the body and its language. The ambivalence of the softness of the materials and the soothing color palette, when set in relation to the distressing issues portrayed, points to the opportunity that lies within the multiple crises of our times for the depicted women — namely, the possibility to acknowledge their personal pain, and in so doing finding the force and power to transform what is hurting them in the first place.

Laura Amann for the exhibition catalog of 
And If I devoted my Life to One of It’s Feathers at Kunsthalle Wien

I started working with textile in 2016. I was inspired by the small tapestries also known as arpilleras by my aunt in Colombia. I loved their colors and simple way of production. The stories they told were easy to read. They resembled beauty that touched me. They spoke a language of softness and sensuality which I began to study and to apply to my own artistic practice. I created images that were about me and my feelings, about painful as well as pleasurable experiences of migration and self-empowerment.