Sophie Macpherson

Born in Aylesbury in 1972, Macpherson graduated in 1996 with a BA in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art. Macpherson served as a committee member at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow from 1998 to 2000. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Synth’, Kunstraum B/2, Leipzig (2004); ‘Sophie Macpherson & Daria Martin’, GSS, Glasgow (2004); ‘Pallas’, The Changing Room, Stirling (2003) and ‘Greyscale/CMYK’, Tramway, Glasgow/Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2003). Macpherson lives and works in Glasgow.

Macpherson makes sculptures, drawings and photographs which are often presented in close proximity, suggesting interrelated fictions. A recurrent humorous subject might be the ersatz confidence of a Bauhaus-schooled Sally Bowles, in whose divinely decadent fabrications satin surfaces of brightly coloured gloss paint are belied by a patent diy roughness. Her large-scale installations frequently resemble stages or catwalks with echoes of Busby Berkeley and the sardonic glitz of Berlin cabaret. The accompanying drawings – like abstracted fashion illustration in coloured pencils – possess both wry elegance and a beguiling lightness of touch making silhouettes of the patterns on art-deco-like costumes refracted through a process of sinister-tinged patterning.

Text by Laurence Figgis

Sophie Macpherson is represented by Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow