Sophia Chizuco is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Born in Japan. She earned her B.A. in Art and Education from Tokyo Gakugei University. In 2000 she moved to New York to study abstract paintings at the Art Students League of New York and earned a certificate in painting for her studies.

She has been selected for a leader for “Hospital-Based Community Murals Project“ at NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in Medicine program, New York in 2019. As well as she has been selected for projectart, art, and social practice, artists in residence in Cypress Hills library and SU-CASA, artist-in-residence in Young Israel Senior Services Neighborhood Senior Center. Since 2013, Chizuco has been a part of the Immigrant Artist Program, acting as a mentor at the New York Foundation for the Arts. She held origami workshop for Immigrants at Museum of Jewish Heritage, Ellis Island Immigration Museum and National Yiddish Theatre and painting workshop at I am an Immigrant event. Also, She organized and curated shows for Immigrant artists. She is the recipient of both the grand prize from ArtNetwork and the Director’s Recognition Award from Period Gallery. Additionally, she won a merit scholarship from the Art Students League of New York.

The artist has exhibited nationally and internationally at the Chelsea Museum (New York), the Staten Island Museum (New York), New York Hall of Science (New York), Lincoln Center (New York), the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (Japan), Makati Shangri-La Hotel, and Raddison Blu Cebu (Philippines).

STATEMENT

I am a multidisciplinary artist in Brooklyn, New York. I was born and raised in the countryside of Japan surrounded by mountains, green tea fields, and the Pacific Ocean. Influenced by organic materials and nature, I draw animals, lines and shapes mimicking natural elements and life such as the wind, plants and the ocean. For my abstract landscape, I use acrylic or oil on canvas. I transfer images of my memories into simple geometric shapes such as squares, circle or lines. Specially, I draw many circles influenced by Enso (Circle in Zen). The shape symbolizes life, sun, light, spirit, peace, infinity, interminable, perfection, and continuance for me.

Also my interest in making installations is due to my desire to engage viewers in all of their senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch and sometimes even taste. I also enjoy making installations because there are many possibilities to incorporate all kinds of media. For example the buildings in my Factitious series address how humans are the only animal that create straight lines and artificial objects, turnings such things eventually into urban environments. The eggshells in Precarious also pertain to human life, in that they are fragile but also full of mystery, potential and everyday magic, provided they are taken care of.

All of my works somehow pertain to human life, society and nature. I love to collaborate with dancers and sound musicians for improvisational performances. It is a physical but a spiritual approach. In Flakes of Dream, I played a negative side of human, like crushing dream, and interacted with a dancer in positive side. We were seeking our relationship using the installation at the gallery space.

LANDSCAPE 0520

Year: 2020

Materials: acrylic on canvas

Size: 20 x 48 x 3/4 inches

MORE INFO

Exhibition “2021”

As a celebration that 2020 has ended and that a new year is here, FLATFILE has launched a new online program title, simply: “2021.”

We invited artists to participate through a rolling open call, which remains open for the entirety of this year. From these submissions, our jury panel carefully selects new works to present on FLATFILE, with new works added throughout all of 2021.

The price of each artwork is a flat $2,021,

a discounted price from the actual value of each work, offered here, exclusively.

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