Apolonia Sokol (born 1988, Paris, France) is a French
figurative painter
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract a ...
. Her work has been widely exhibited in France, Denmark, Belgium and the USA. She is known for her autobiographical approach to painting, using the art of
portraiture as a tool for political empowerment in paintings inspired by art historical canon, to address issues around
feminism and
queer culture.
A 2023
documentary film ''
Apolonia, Apolonia'' by Lea Glob was made on her journey through 13 years of life.
Biography
Sokol was born in Paris and is of Polish and French descent. She grew up in France and Denmark.
Sokol graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de
Beaux-Arts de Paris
The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Sciences ...
with an MFA in 2015, after which she moved to New York where she worked in
Dan Colen's studio. She then moved to Los Angeles where she found a community of artists to exchange around figurative painting.
Upon her return to Europe, she was nominated for the Révélations Emerige prize in 2018 and won the Antoine Marin prize in 2019. In 2020 she was the laureate of the prestigious
Academy of France in Rome
The French Academy in Rome (french: Académie de France à Rome) is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill) in Rome, Italy.
History
The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica ...
and won a residency at the
Villa Medicis for 2020–2021.
In 2022, Danish Contemporary and
HBO Max co-produced the documentary ''
Apolonia, Apolonia'' directed by Léa Glob who followed Sokol's life and career for over a decade. The documentary film won Best Feature Length documentary at
IDFA, Best Documentary at
Hong Kong International Film Festival and Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary at
Gothenburg Film Festival. Touring festivals across the world throughout 2023, the film also won The International Documentary Grand Prix at
Sofia International Film Festival, Best Film and Best Documentary on Music and Arts at Poland's Millenium Docs Against Gravity Festival and was selected as Unforgettable honoree by
17th Cinema Eye Honors Awards, USA.
Work
Apolonia Sokol counts as one of the leading figures in New French Painting according to multiple reviews.
Reflecting on gendered representation throughout history and on
body politic
The body politic is a polity—such as a city, realm, or state—considered metaphorically as a physical body. Historically, the sovereign is typically portrayed as the body's head, and the analogy may also be extended to other anatomical par ...
s, Apolonia Sokol's paintings are characterized by her close relationships and intimacy with the models she paints. She often depicts her friends, lovers and collaborators as icons of a radical subjectivity bound together by alternative kinships and an idea of "chosen family".
French art critic Richard Leydier notes the theatricality of space in Sokol's paintings where the women depicted "inhabit an unusual space that contains them within an enclosed and angular geometry (...) The icon establishes the relationship between background and subject, such that it is a metaphor for the way a figure is transplanted into a place, a backdrop or a country".
While the artist references the influence of artists such as
Suzanne Valadon,
Alice Neel
Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist, who was known for her portraits depicting friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psyc ...
,
Chantal Joffe and
Tracey Emin as important influences, she also addresses through her work the omission of women from art history, by rehabilitating historical figures such as
Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi (, ; 8 July 1593) was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing profess ...
or
Elisabetta Sirani in contemporary interpretations of their works, and by appropriating and reversing iconographic elements from well-known paintings such as
Boticelli's Primavera.
Exhibitions
Apolonia Sokol's work was presented in a major solo exhibition at
Arken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2023. She has participated in important survey exhibitions such as ''Women Painting Women'' at the
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, US (2022);
''Women and Change'' at the
Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (2022); ''L'Immortelle. Vitalité de la Jeune Peinture Figurative Française'' (2023)
and ''Possessed'' (2020) at MO.CO Montpellier, France; ''She - Classicità'' at the Polana Institute, Warsaw, Poland (2021) and ''Entre tes yeux et les images que j'y vois (A Sentimental Choice)'' at the Pernod Ricard Foundation in Paris, France (2022).
References
French women artists
1988 births
French portrait painters
Feminist artists
Living people
{{improve categories, date=June 2023
Queer painters