why do you look like that?

Artist statement: Sophia Kaur primarily works with oil paints to create large naked self portraits to challenge the notion that female bodies are inherently sexual. Sophia is interested in blurring the boundaries between artist, model and viewer and reversing who is being looked. Her figures return a confronting gaze that consistently draws attention, prompting reflection on societies tendency to objectify nudity and disorientating the viewer from the initial, seductive and immersive nature of the work. Sophia Kaur is fascinated by the various selves one moves between in different contexts, conforming and rejecting to certain standards. She depicts her multiple selves intertwining in otherworldly colours that coexist within a liminal space-time, since she exists in-between the binaries set up in Western society. Sophia’s window-like installation construct a portal into another world, which along with a vibrant colour palette and translucent layers invites the viewers to immerse themselves in an unsettling yet captivating eerie familiarity.