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. 

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Selected recent solo & group exhibitions:

2023 Scott Livesey Galleries VIC AUS
2023 Fotonostrum Barcelona ESP
2022 Assembly Point, Southbank, Melbourne VIC AUS

2022 MGA Bowness Prize VIC AUS

2022 Sculpture By The Sea Bondi NSW AUS
2022 Winmark Winery Sculpture Walk Hunter Valley NSW AUS
2020 Southeast Museum Of Photography Florida USA

2018 White Night Melbourne VIC AUS

2018 Lorne Sculpture Biennale VIC AUS

2018 Hillview Sculpture Biennial Southern Highlands NSW AUS

2017 CCP Perth WA AUS

2017 CCP Melbourne VIC AUS

2016 McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park VIC AUS

2016 Fabrik Expo Art Design & Architecture Los Angeles USA

2016 Art16 London Fehily Contemporary UK

2016 Willow Studios Los Angeles Arts District Of DTLA USA

2016 Auckland Art Fair Fehily Contemporary NZ

2015 BOMA Shipping Container Gallery QLD AUS

2014 Bayside Art Gallery Melbourne VIC AUS

2013 L’Oreal Fashion Week VIC AUS
2012 Shanghai Contemporary ACAF CHINA

2012 Urban Planning Exhibition Centre Shanghai CHINA
2012 Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of WA AUS
2010 Melbourne Art Fair Charles Nodrum Gallery VIC AUS
2010 John Curtin Gallery Perth WA AUS

2007 Tarrawarra Museum Of Art VIC AUS

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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

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

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

2020 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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