Sophie Ko

Sophie Ko (Tbilisi, 1981) lives and works in Milan. At the centre of her practice is the concept of time, explored through the powerful symbolic relationship between the materials she uses – primarily ashes from burned images and pure pigments – and the images she creates. Change and the instability of matter in relation to the passage of time are therefore among the constants of her artistic research. The Geografie temporali, for example, embody works perpetually suspended between creation and destruction, in which the image is subjected to a continuous process of transformation through the slow and inexorable collapse of the matter of which it is made. Conceived through a conceptual and formal negotiation between sculpture and painting, this series stages “a bond made of weight, pressure, gravity and the destruction wrought by time upon images, but also of formation, depth, return and rebirth in relation to the passage of time.” Powerful metaphors for the transience and mutability of existence, these works recall the trajectory of life we trace, running parallel to a process of collapse that is slow yet persistent.

Selected solo exhibitions include: Manche Freilich müssen drunten sterben / Some must die below, of course, EYES ONLY, Munich (2025); Sophie Ko. Chiaro di Luna, curated by Michela Eremita, Raggio verde 2025, Accademia dei Fisiocritici, Siena (2025); È talmente anima, che non è anima, EAST Galerie, Strasbourg (2025); Sophie Ko: Geografia Temporale, curated by Elena Re, Italian Cultural Institute, London (2024); INTERVENTION Sophie Ko: Temporal Geography, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London (2024); Ai vinti, curated by Paola Tognon, Contemporary Locus, Bergamo (2023); Andature II, curated by Marcella Cangioli and Antonella Nicola, Museo Marino Marini, with Elisabetta di Maggio, Florence (2022); Alzarono gli occhi e avvertirono il cielo, EAST Galerie, Strasbourg (2022); Il resto della terra, Galleria de’ Foscherari, Bologna (2016, 2021–2022); La forma dell’oro. 9/12 Sophie Ko, Metaxu (2021), curated by Melania Rossi, BUILDING BOX, Milan (2021); Atti di resistenza, in Materie, spazi, visioni, BUILDING GALLERY, Milan (2020); Ca’ Pesaro – Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Venice (2019); Sporgersi nella notte, Renata Fabbri, Milan (2018) and The OpenBox, Milan (2018).
Recent group exhibitions include: ERSEL Milan–Turin (2026); GAS–Galleria Andrea Sansovino (Palazzo Ciocchi di Monte, Church of Santa Chiara, Renaissance Cistern), Monte San Savino (2026); MO.CA – Centro per le nuove culture, Brescia (2025); Fondazione Magnani-Rocca, Mamiano di Traversetolo, Parma (2025); Museo storico e Parco del castello di Miramare, Trieste (2024–2025); Fondazione Made in Cloister, Naples (2024); SAMoCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2024); Circolo, Milan (2023); Villa Croce Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Genoa (2023); BAG. Bocconi Art Gallery, Milan (2022); Palazzo Ducale di Gubbio (2022); Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Castelbasso (2021); Albergo delle Povere, Palermo (promoted by RISO – Museo regionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Palermo) (2021); Palazzo Barbò Torre Pallavicina, Bologna (2021); MAC – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Lissone (2021); and Renata Fabbri, Milan (2020), among others. In 2016, Sophie Ko was awarded the Gran Premio della Pittura at MAC in Lissone.