Bio
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 artwork it is personal, involving family and rooted in direct experience, transcending its origins to address universal concerns.
Hybridity is an integral part of Payes’s artistic practice and over her professional career she has combined her foundational photographic work with digital imagery, 3D technologies, animated film and sculpture. Payes 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. Her work is collected by numerous public galleries and private collections in Australia, Shanghai, Beijing, Switzerland, London, Belgium and United States of America.
Payes has participated in multiple Art Fairs; Melbourne, London, Shanghai Contemporary and Sydney Contemporary.
Selected highlights include:
2024 Personal Structures, Venice Bienniale, Giardini Marinaressa, Venice, Italy
2024 Photo2024 | Renaissance; A Journey of Transformation, Museum of Australian Photography MAPh, Melbourne, Australia
2024 Ocean Drive Hotels, Alchemy, Barcelona, Spain
2023 Alchemy, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne, Australia
2023 3rd Barcelona Photo Biennial, Sideshow | Helmut Newton Foundation Fotonostrum, Barcelona, Spain
2023 Transmutations, Creative Spaces, City of Melbourne, Australia
2022 Alchemy, There-is, Fringe Festival, Perth, Western Australia
2022 MGA Bowness Photography Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia
2020 From all Points of the Southern Sky, Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida USA
2017 Australians In PNG Museum of Australian Photography MAPh, Melbourne, Australia
2016 Parallel Futures, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Melbourne, Australia
Public art & Sculpture:
2024 City of Monash – MAPh
Corner Ferntree Gully Road & Jells Road, Wheelers Hill, VIC, AUS
2023 Mornington Peninsula, Frankston City Council
Dandenong Road West, VIC, AUS
2016 City of Melville,
Robert Street Park, Cnr Leach Hwy & North Lake Drive, Winthrop, WA, AUS
Major Selected Publications:
2007 UNTITLED.Portraits of Australian Artists - by Sonia Payes - Macmillan Art Publishing
2017 TRANSFORMATIONS The Art of Sonia Payes - by Dr. Ashley Crawford - Thames & Hudson
Currently showing through ARTPark Australia on Cowper Wharf Roadway, Woolloomooloo, NSW, Australia
Sonia Payes is represented by Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne, Australia.
