Purchase Sophia Chai's fine print from 2024 and receive a free copy of her contact sheet from her 2023 exhibition at Light Work, Character Space. Please note the frame is not included.
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet 224: Sophia Chai
Publisher: Light Work (December 2023)
ISBN: 978-1-945725-34-0
Chai uses optics (focal length, perspective, perception, and magnification) to pin down the marks, rubbings, and paintings on her studio walls. The overall effect is a collage of ideas, with an efficient yet complicated economy of picture making with intentional gaps. These gaps can describe the moment right before the sound of a word comes out of the interior space of the mouth. One’s mouth may understand and sound out words, but one’s conscious knowledge of their meaning may not be fully there yet. This liminal space is the punctuated strength and slippery ambiguity of her photographs. Chai is an artist who remains open and disciplined, committing to the mindset of the child at odds with that of the adult. The photographs born from this are restrained but not withholding.
Fine Prints
Punctuated Sequence in Red, V, 2010–15
Archival inkjet print, 11×14.2″ image on 13×16.2″ paper
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
This photograph is the fifth and last part of a series called Punctuated Sequence in Red. At the time, I was working as a research technician in a biology lab at Rockefeller University in New York City. One of the experimental methods scientists would often use was to capture events at various time points, taking snapshots at different times within a set framework to understand how a phenomenon of their question would unfold over the course of time. I was fascinated by this idea of imagining what might happen in the “in-between” time points and projecting that imagination into the realm of reality, or the known.
When I first printed this image in 2010, I had cropped out the “messy” details around the edges: the blue tape I had used to align what I saw on the viewfinder of my 4×5 view camera with the actual studio corner. Five years later, while looking at the contact sheet, I noticed these overlooked elements along the edges and felt compelled to include them. The white shapes in the red corner anchored my intentions and control, while the edges held traces of my process and the details I had initially dismissed. This felt like another interplay between dreaming and knowing.
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Sophia Chai was born in Busan, South Korea. She received her BA in chemistry from the University of Chicago and earned her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Chai has presented her work widely at sites including the A.I.R. Gallery, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Knockdown Center, Marinaro Gallery and Tiger Strikes Asteroid. Sole exhibitions include 106 Green Gallery in New York City (2016), Rochester Art Center in Minnesota (2020), and Hair+Nails Gallery in Minneapolis (2020, 2023). Chai has received financial support from the Jerome Foundations (2019-2020), Minnesota Stare Arts Board (2020, 2022, and 2023), and Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (2019). The City of Rochester and Destinations Medical Center have commissioned her first permanent public outdoor art project, which will be completed in early 2024. Chai is presented by Hair+Nails Gallery. She lives and works in Rochester, MN.