Opening night - Thursday the 3rd of December 6 - 9pm

Exhibition opening times 12pm - 7pm Friday - Tuesday
12pm - 3pm Wednesday

French born, Sydney based figurative artist, Sophie P. d’Abrigeon, re-appropriates the concept of the Cabinet Card.

Cabinet Cards were a type of photograph widely used for portraiture after 1870. It consisted of a thin albumen print mounted on a card, large enough to be easily viewed from across the room when displayed on a cabinet, hence their nomenclature.

Using mainly graphite and subtle pigments on distressed gesso, Sophie reconstructs vintage photographs and historical documents into hybrid images, so what may have once seemed customary or conventional becomes bizarre or surreal.

Sophie is interested in the relationship between tenure and status, gender discrimination and bias based on appearance. Women are represented through their historical trappings -corsets or elaborated hairstyles- while facial features are partially hidden behind masks, patches or helmets to create a visual and mental dislocation.

These subverted portraits explore the boundaries of representation while alluding to issues of power and alienation, yet never communicate a concrete message.

‘I like to intervene in the original meaning of an image to create a new representation that oscillates between beauty and strangeness.
What I seek is an engaging, unified image; yet one in which the meaning is ambiguous and open-ended’.