bog bod reprise
“A chicken I gutted in Petersham and burning coconut husks kicked barefoot by Balinese conduits are elevated and remembered alongside five-toed worm lizards, Javanese sulphuric lakes and watercolour scabs. All in all, an exercise in summoning a sum of parts that too often evade location but always feel like going home.”
“These works provide me with a method of cloaking or codifying personal states of being, drawing reference from memories, sensations and feelings that altogether feel too real. I often gravitate towards things that are invisible to us that keep us going… like gut flora, gut intuition, and kinship.”ˆ
Sofiyah Ruqayah is a Sydney based artist whose practice examines the slippery territories between human and nonhuman realities. Drawing upon imagined and felt connections between various beings, presences and memories, as well an infatuation with deep sea creatures and mutational states, Sofiyah’s practice invites us to speculate on our nonhuman origins and intertwined fates.
Sofiyah is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Art at National Art School in Darlinghurst. Since completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at University of New South Wales in 2016, Sofiyah has exhibited both locally and internationally, including group exhibitions at Lubov Gallery (New York), Peacock Gallery (Sydney) and at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (Sydney) with Woven Kolektif.
ˆInterview with the artist, by Sarah Gho
