Biography
Sophie Gough makes sculptural work influenced by her interest in material culture, innovation and the exploration of space. She is inspired by the interstices between things both organic and manmade, industrial and natural landscapes in both form and material. Her practice has been largely influenced by her time living and working in New York City as studio technician and assistant to the world renowned sculptor Michael Joo and also by residences spent in West Cork, resulting in a visual paradox of entities oscillating between suggestions of the architectural and the geologic, the ephemeral and the permanent.
Gough graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design (L.S.A.D) in 2016 with a first class honors BA in Sculpture and Combined Media. Since then she has exhibited internationally in Dada Post Berlin, Gallery Port Reykjavik, Gallery Unnamed New York, and the H.K.U.University of the Arts Utrecht. She has completed residencies with the National Sculpture Factory in Cork, Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, County Cork and Dada Post, Berlin. She has interned with Ireland at Venice 2015 for the Venice Biennale and EVA: International 2016.
Gough’s recent projects include a sculptural installation as part of The Boundaries Between Us Endure, 2019 written and conceived byPeter Power for the Cork Midsummer Festival Midwinter Event and Impossible Spaces, 2019 a solo exhibition of drawings in Soma, Cork. From October 2019 to June 2020, Sophie was an assistant lecturer of sculpture in Limerick School of Art and Design. In September 2020 Gough completed her first public art commission Bri, 2020 at the Hive Building in Sandyford Business Park, Dublin.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021 The Thing That Once Was The Thing is Still Here, Good Day Deli, Cork
2019 Impossible Spaces, SOMA, Cork. Exhibition curated by Stella Diming Zhong , Unnamed_Gallery , New York
2018 The Materialists :Sophie Gough and Daire O’Shea, Two Person Show, 126 Gallery, Galway
2017 TACTIC Visual Arts Programme, part of Sample-Studios, Elizabeth Fort, Cork
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 NUA, SO Fine Art Editions, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, Dublin 2
2021 Content 2021, Cork’s Midsummer Festival in collaboration with Peter Power
2020 SO Fine Art Christmas Exhibition, Powerscourt Centre, Dublin
2019 The Boundaries Between Us Endure, with Peter Power, The Midwinter X Cork Midsummer Festival Site Specific Performance at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork
2018 Gallery Port, Reykjavik, Iceland Curated by Arni Erlingsson
2018 Transforming the Turf, Emerging Irish Artists based in New York, UES, New York
2018 Industry, Solstice Art Centre, Meath
2017 Editions at Gallery Port, Reykjavik, Iceland curated by Arni Erlingsson
2017 Tombolo : Lay of The Land, Brow Head, Mizen Penninsula
2016 We are drifters, 126 Gallery
2016 Forward Looking, Looking Back Now, TACTIC, Cork, curated by Allison Fogarty
2016 LSAD Graduate Show 2016, Limerick School of Art and Design, Limerick