ARTIST STATEMENT
As a visual artist, I am creating a new way of seeing and understanding architectural imagery with sacred connotations. I am fascinated with the material representations of a paradise on earth. It has led my investigation into how contemporary art, through the use of colour, collage, fragmentation, and geometry in spiritual and transcendent forms, can imply a sacred realm. During my transpersonal experiences from childhood to adolescence, I felt an awareness of an otherworldly dimension through the sensation of a spiritual aesthetic in Greek Orthodox churches in Sydney, Australia. The fragments within the interior and exterior facade resemble unspoken yearnings and spatial order of awe-inspiring power. In each space, I became aware of an aura of a higher being, finding myself absorbed in the search for a mystical realm of my own understanding. My paintings are based on the photographs of existing architectural spaces that I believe retain an overwhelming divine and god-like presence in the structure. My artworks attempt to represent the paradisical entity through alternative imagery, defying the everyday depictions of a divine realm. I am exploring how the medium of paint can offer a deeper dimension through the utilisation of transcendent forms, harmonious colours, geometric compositions, and hard-edged shapes.
BIOGRAPHY
Sophia Lee Georgas is a visual artist living and working in Sydney, Australia. Sophia attributes her art practice to her fixation on architectural structures dedicated to higher beings from her transpersonal experiences as a child in Greek Orthodox churches. She attempts to render these buildings into painterly ‘thought forms’ as their perfectly aesthetic and idealistic forms are transformed into symbolic elements on her canvas. Vast cavernous spaces, altars and pulpits are rendered in colourful geometric shapes, yet their fragmentation offers an alternate view of these sacred spaces. Dream-like in quality, Sophia’s works offer an alternative scene, one filled with the imperfections of reality. Graduating with a Master of Fine Art from the National Art School, Sydney in 2021, Sophia Lee Georgas was awarded the British School of Rome Residency 2023 and selected for a solo exhibition at Orange Regional Gallery as part of The Seed Exhibition 2024. Sophia has been selected as a finalist in the Lloyd Rees Emerging Artist Award and Flanagan Art Prize in 2025, the Georges River Art Prize in 2023, the Waverley Art Award and Fisher’s Ghost Art Award in 2022, the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award in 2021, and the Clyde & Co Art Award in 2020.
