Violeta Sofia is an acclaimed art photographer who masterfully balances themes of identity, race, and the human connection in each frame. A darling of the Royal Academy of Arts, Christie’s, and the National Portrait Gallery, her works will be showcased at two exhibitions in London’s upcoming 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair.
The 1-54 Art Fair is an annual highlight of London’s art event calendar. Hosted by Somerset House on the Strand, it routinely displays a series of spectacular paintings and crafts within the art institution’s maze of neoclassical rooms. This year (from 16-19 October), guests will cast their eyes upon dozens of contemporary artists represented by both emerging and established galleries. Among the swathe of multi-award-winning talents, exhibition veterans, and self-taught artists is world-renowned photographer and visual artist Violeta Sofia.
“I like to photograph the person as they come,” says Sofia. “Photographing portraits is about feeling the moment, feeling the person that is sitting in front of you.” Represented by Gillian Jason Gallery, the Cameroonian-born, London-based artist is a triple threat. Her portfolio is part commercial photography (spotlighting actors), part fashion stills and part art portraiture. With the latter garnering her the most acclaim for its modern take on the old masters’ outdated conventions. It’s these portraits, named the ‘Hand Masters’ series, that will take top billing in two interconnected exhibitions during the 1-54 Art Fair, christening a unique partnership between ME London Hotel, Gillian Jason Gallery, and A Space for Arts.
Most recently showing at Art Dubai, the photographer has captured some of the most recognizable actors of our day, from Saoirse Ronan, Gwendoline Christie, and Dakota Johnson to Tilda Swinton, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Not forgetting fashion royalty Chloë Sevigny and Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson. These promotional shoots (often tied to events like film festivals or the Oscars) feature caveats of high-strung, fast-paced moments. Sometimes you only have five minutes, so you have to connect with that person really quickly,” says Sofia. But the immediacy of celebrity portraiture is relatively “relaxing” when compared to the deeply emotional and exhaustive nature of her fine art photography. “I like to have that balance of the two,” she says. “With fine art, it’s all-encompassing. I have to look inside to find something healing.”
Sofia’s passion for photography raised its head during infancy, “My dad would collect cameras and take them on travelling trips,” she explains. “I started stealing his cameras and practicing photography.” Unfortunately, her childhood in Spain offered limited opportunities for artistic enrichment. It wasn’t until she moved to London and began studying media in her teens, the young artist found encouragement and creative support. Sofia gained experience working in various studios across the city, eventually joining a portrait studio and honing her distinctive dramatic lighting techniques.
“Everyone tells you that being a photographer is impossible,” says Sofia. “But no other job was making me happy. It’s not that I find it depressing; my body just rejects it. I go to very dark places when I’m not being creative, and I don’t really recognize myself.” This realization pushed her to pursue photography fully. “I just thought: ‘No, you need to stop all of this and pursue what you want to do.’” Eventually, she decided to drop everything and commit. “It was time to go big or go home.” This turning point in her career was marked by a stint at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition and a growing appreciation for “the avant-garde movement of Black photographers that are coming into the scene.”
The ‘Hands Masters’ series, soon to be displayed at the 1-54 Art Fair, is inherently contemplative and personal. Bleeding notes of self-introspection and complexity, each frame reveals Sofia’s years-long documentation of her vitiligo, a long-term skin condition causing the loss of skin pigment. Each self-portrait within the series are curiously devoid of Sofia’s face or upper profile, but shows her hands delicately intertwined in the shape of a teardrop vase. They take centre stage and are photographed in their current phase of discoloration, fully white. Inviting us to examine the shape, colour, texture, and symmetry of vitiligo, we join the artist-cum-muse as she explores ideas of rebirth, self-acceptance and evolution.
The space usually reserved for the face is cloaked with verdant bouquets of florals or bushels of leaves. Meanwhile, arms are sheathed in silk, satin or brocaded virago sleeves that gather and flare at the stem of the wrists before ballooning around the base of the elbows. They are underscored by blossoming florals or plush grapes and oranges in the portrait’s lower third. As fashion and art enthusiasts will know, the seventeenth-century sleeves, opulent fruits and decorative flowers all point to the still lifes of the Dutch Masters: a movement of artists who heralded a Golden Age in art commerce and nature-inspired paintings.
“People connect the dots straight away,” laughs Sofia. Perhaps like the Golden Age painters Ambrosius Bosschaert, Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch, Sofia’s works have made her “a stylist and a florist”, and she can now recall the meanings, seasonality, and symbolism of various flowers portrayed in her artworks. The genesis of this fine art series comes from the artist’s relationship with identity. Born in Cameroon and raised in Madrid, Sofia recalls feeling alienated due to her dual heritage. “Everyone makes you feel like you don’t belong here and tell you who you are. Those in Spain don’t believe I’m Spanish, and those in Cameroon don’t think I belong there either.” Couple this with the public’s reception towards Sofia’s vitiligo.
“There was a time when vitiligo was becoming fashionable… People used to stop me on the streets and say, ‘Oh, you look so cool.’” While complimentary, these comments conflicted with how Sofia felt about her skin, and she resolved to, quite literally, take matters into her own hands. The artist’s immediate question: “How would I feel if my hands became completely white?” soon became: “How would I feel if my hands became black?” Now, her work seeks to accentuate her identity “as an African” while communicating that the impact of vitiligo is more than skin-deep.
It’s refreshing to elements of the Dutch Masters through a contemporary lens that celebrates race and identity. During the 17th century, Dutch depictions of African people largely celebrated the conquest of the Dutch West India Company by portraying slaves in bucolic colonies. There were exceptions, however, and the free Black population of Amsterdam were painted in scenes of street life, as artists’ models, and biblical figures.
Think of Jasper Beckx’s Portrait of Don Miguel de Castro (1643), and the genre painting Koning Caspar (1654-1659) by Hendrick Heerschop. Like the latter, Sofia’s works refuse to marginalise her identity but accentuate her individuality as the main character in her narrative. It’s a fresh dialogue between classical art and contemporary identity. With enigmatic skill, she has combined the compositional beauty and symbolic richness of old master paintings with her own lived experiences and cultural heritage.
This is not the first time Sofia has honoured her roots with symbolic imagery. The artist’s Belonging and Rebirth installation, showcased at the Handbag Factory in 2024, was an ode to the cultural “magic” of her heritage and traditions of Cameroon and the island of Bioko. The exhibition was a rich tapestry of vibrant mediums, including photography, painting, sculpture and video. It was inspired by Yinka Shonibare’s (the exceptional artist and curator behind the Royal Academy of Arts’ 2021 Summer Exhibition Reclaiming Magic), powerful statement: “To reclaim magic means to regain power over the word.” In truth, this quote still feels remarkably pertinent to Sofia’s oeuvre of metaphysical imagery and reclamation.
1-54 Contemp. African Art Fair runs from 16-19 October 2025.
words. Raegan Rubin
