About >>>
Foxtrot Lightning is the name for creative projects by Sophie Polyviou- visual artist now based in London, originally from the Mediterranean and forever drawn back to the sea.
Informed by a sense of wonder I am pulled to exploring everyday topographies & the relationship between humans and our environment in a time of increasing disconnection.
I use my camera to keep my eyes open and an ear to the ground, intuitively responding to & photographing the world we have created, and the one which answers back.
Engaging with landscapes or people, the camera becomes a tool for meditative & careful observation, a way of obliquely approaching the unknown and the overly familiar, seeking to share the true strangeness & enduring mystery of our world.
During the process of translating captured images on film and screen back into tangible objects, such as prints or books, images are sparingly altered or interrupted, put through a course of digital and physical manipulation: inverting colours to negative, printing on different mediums, using idiosyncratic printers. The process introduces elements of noise, texture, & mutation, so that mechanical errors begin to echo natural patterns.
Exhibitions, publications & fairs
2024
(Return) To The Sea, Shutter Hub exhibition, Seafront Gallery, Worthing
Analog Sparks Awards, 2024
Coast, The Photocopy Club, Grays Wharf Gallery, Penryn
Annual Open Exhibition, Southwark Park Galleries, London
2023
Postcards for Palestine, Berlinskej Model Prague & Claire De Rouen Book, London
PageMasters Winter Market, South London Gallery
Annual Open Exhibition, Southwark Park Galleries, London
On Reflection, Wondering People exhibition, Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts Trust, London
MEGA//MONO//LITH, self-published zine
Shutter Hub Yearbook 2023, online exhibition
Madre Celestial solo street exhibition, Crossbones Graveyard, BOST Festival, London
Open Theme 2023, F-Stop Magazine, online exhibition
The Power of Play, Work Show Grow exhibition, Courthouse Projects, London
Madre Celestial exhibition & zine launch, Photobook Cafe, London
Sanford Vitrine, Sanford Housing Co-op, Deptford, London
2022
Annual Open Exhibition, Southwark Park Galleries, London
Road Trip, Shutter Hub Editions publication
The Art Car Boot Fair: Electric Edition, Lewis Cubitt Square, London
Postcards from Europe, Art at the ARB, Cambridge University
2021
Edition 365, British Journal of Photography & newart.city
10 Years of The Photocopy Club, Bateman's Row, London
Environment Zine, Fleur and Arbor
High Noon Weather, self-published zine
Stray Light zine, PhotoBookCafe publication
2020
We're All Gonna Die of Something, Blasé House
Ore, self-published zine
2018
Portraits from A Hackney Autobiography, Stour Space
Holding The Baby, touring exhibition, East London Libraries
2014
Fake Tan Salon, Doyce Street Mining Company, London
Swim London (book published by Aurum Press)
2013
Sounds From The Park, Bishopsgate Institute, London
Fake Tan Salon, The Aftermath, Bar Lane Studios, York
The Photocopy Club, Adventure and the Ocean, Wowohho Space, Hong Kong
2012
Reflections in Pubs & Bedrooms, Photomonth12, Riley's of Clapton, London
Slide Project(or), PhotoIreland, The Bernard Shaw, Dublin
2011
Photo-Open, Photomonth11, Rich Mix, London
Camera Obscura, The Big Draw, Bar Lane Studios, York