Artist Statement

It is through intimate encounters with particular people that we become capable of extending our empathy to humanity on a broader scale. Gibson’s work reflects this opening up from the specific to the universal, for in addition to making carefully observed portrait sculptures, Gibson sculpts less specific, invented bodies that illustrate states of contemplation, dream, or surrender. By sculpting portraits of specific individuals at a scale close to that of a living human body, Gibson opens the possibility for encounters wherein emotions, remembered experiences, or mysterious information pass from her objects to her viewers. Her sculptures begin, proceed, and end as exchanges of intimacies. The purpose of these sculptures is to help awaken people’s narrative and imaginative capacities. 

Biography

Sophie Gibson (b. 1993)  is a figurative ceramic sculptor from Charlottesville, VA. Gibson holds an MFA in Ceramic Art from the New York State College of Ceramics, a  B.F.A. in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a B.A. in History from Brown University. Gibson has been awarded residencies at the Red Lodge Clay Center and Cordova Studios. Collected by the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, her work has also been exhibited in galleries throughout the Eastern United States including the Jane Hartsook Gallery (NY), Fosdick-Nelson Gallery (NY), Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery (PA), The Visual Arts Center of Richmond (VA), Chroma Projects (VA), Second Street Gallery (VA), Gallery 130 (MS), and Granoff Center for the Creative Arts (RI). Gibson currently lives and works in Connecticut, where she serves as the full-time ceramic faculty in the Visual Arts Department at The Loomis Chaffee School.