The multifaceted world of Sonia Payes – a Melbourne artist who creates works on environmentalism to examine intersections between landscape and the body, feminine and the natural. 

Like much of Payes’s art work it is personal, involving family and rooted in direct experience, transcending its origins to address universal concerns. 

 

Hybridity is an integral part of her artistic practice, and over her professional career she has combined her foundational photographic work with digital imagery, 3D technologies, animated film and sculpture. She continues to blur categorical distinctions; bringing together her photographic works and the sculptural work that has developed from it, as a way of interrogating these key questions confronting the human species.

 

Payes has exhibited in public and private galleries including museums nationally and internationally; Collected by numerous public galleries and private collections in Australia, Shanghai, Beijing, Switzerland, London, Belgium and United States of America.  Payes has participated in many Art Fairs, Melbourne, Shanghai Contemporary and Sydney Contemporary.

Selected highlights to date; Payes’s major solo exhibition at McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, as the recipient of the MAP14 Prize for sculpture, Parallel Futures. Australians In PNG, curated solo exhibition held at the Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne; selected Australian artists to exhibit at the Southeast Museum of Photography in Florida USA; a solo exhibition at Fringe Festival, WA and a public art exhibition Transmutations 2022 for the City of Melbourne, Australia.  

 

More recently in 2022, exhibiting her new photographic works in Barcelona at the 3rd Barcelona Photo Biennial, Spain; followed by a side show with the works of Helmut Newton in Barcelona through the Foundation at Fotonostrum and receiving an Honourable Mention as a finalist in the 2022 MGA Bowness Photography Prize. 

 

2023 sees Payes exhibiting a solo exhibition in Barcelona Spain as the Winner of the Fine Art Open Theme in the category of Landscape Series for the 19th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers, juried by Barbara Davidson, Guggenheim Fellow, 3x Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award-winning photographer. Payes simultaneously received an Honourable Mention in the category of Women Seen by Women Series at Fotonostrum, Spain.

 

As recipient of the  Waverley Council Grounds Staff Pick for her 2.5 metre bronze sculpture Emergence at Sculpture By The Sea, Bondi, Australia, Payes bronze sculpture is heading off to be installed as public art in Melbourne soon. 

Selected solo & group exhibitions include:
Fotonostrum Barcelona ESP
Assembly Point, Southbank, Melbourne VIC AUS
Southeast Museum Of Photography Florida USA
MGA Bowness Prize VIC AUS

McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park VIC AUS
Scott Livesey Galleries VIC AUS

Fabrik Expo Art Design & Architecture Los Angeles USA

Art16 London Fehily Contemporary UK

Willow Studios Los Angeles Arts District Of DTLA USA

Auckland Art Fair Fehily Contemporary NZ
Shanghai Contemporary ACAF CHINA

Urban Planning Exhibition Centre Shanghai CHINA
Sculpture By The Sea Bondi NSW AUS
White Night Melbourne VIC AUS
Lorne Sculpture Biennale VIC AUS
L’Oreal Fashion Week VIC AUS
BOMA Shipping Container Gallery QLD AUS
CCP Perth WA AUS

CCP Melbourne VIC AUS
Melbourne Art Fair Charles Nodrum Gallery VIC AUS
John Curtin Gallery Perth WA AUS

Tarrawarra Museum Of Art VIC AUS

Bayside Art Gallery Melbourne VIC AUS
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of WA AUS

Hillview Sculpture Biennial Southern Highlands NSW AUS
Winmark Winery Sculpture Walk Hunter Valley NSW AUS
 

Major Selected Publications:
UNTITLED.Portraits of Australian Artists - by Sonia Payes - Macmillan Art Publishing 2007

TRANSFORMATIONS The Art of Sonia Payes - by Dr. Ashley Crawford - Thames & Hudson 2017

Look Contemporary Australian Photography Since 1980 - by Professor Anne Marsh - Macmillan Art Publishing 2010
AgIdeas, Design Is Difference - by Ken Cato -Design Media Publishing Limited 2013

Sculpture By The Sea, The First Twenty Years 1997 - 2016 - by David Handley AM - Pennypig Publishing 2016 

View Finding: Monash Gallery Of Art 1990 – 2020 - by Monash Gallery Of Art


Payes is represented by Scott Livesey Galleries Melbourne Australia

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