Sophie Michael

'Sophie Michael's films are like a visual hide-and-seek. Her work brings together sculpture and film in such a way that ordinary objects are transformed for us by the minutely directed specificity of her looking. The reels unfold kaleidoscopically before the eye, looping through analogue sequences of manipulated light and glimpsed environments that are both confused and familiar yet all shot through with an acute awareness of the nostalgia we attach to both formats and objects.'
- Eva Rothschild, Frieze, Issue 141 September 2011; 20th Anniversary Issue.

Sophie Michael is a London based artist working across film, photography and installation. Her 16mm films examine ideas around nostalgia and innocence, drawing on early experimental filmmaking and mid-twentieth century design to question our relationship to the past through the lens of the present.

Between 2010-14 she produced four films as part of the Astrid series. These films are made with her young collaborator Astrid Everall over the ages of seven to eleven. In these films Astrid responds to different sets that re-construct interiors from 1950s Charles and Ray Eames designs to 1970s home improvement magazines.

Michael studied in London at Slade School of Fine Art (2004-8) and the Royal Academy Schools (2009-12), and exhibits in film festivals, galleries and museums internationally. She was the recipient of The Arts Bursary of the British School at Athens, 2012, and The Artist's Cut, a Northern Film & Media commission in partnership with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2014.

Recently her work has been screened at San Francisco International Film Festival, Flatpack Film Festival, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Tate Modern, Kunstrum Baden, Images Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. Her solo show Trip (the light fantastic) ran through Summer 2016 at Tate Britain, as part of the Art Now series. Michael is represented by Seventeen Gallery in London.

Links:

Seventeen Gallery profile
http://www.seventeengallery.com/artists/sophie-michael/

Artist website
www.sophiemichael.co.uk

Fandor profile
https://www.fandor.com/filmmakers/director-sophie-michael-2104

Art Now, Tate Britain
http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain/display/sophie-michael-trip-light-fantastic



FILMOGRAPHY

The Watershow Extravaganza, 2016, UK, 10.5 mins, 16mm, optical sound
Daphne (Purple / Red), 2014, UK, 5 mins, 16mm, optical sound
Astrid Doubles, 2014, UK, 3 mins, 16mm, silent
Attica, 2013, UK / Greece, 13 mins, 16mm, optical sound
Chapters One to Five, 2012, UK, 16 mins, optical sound
Untitled (Dark / Slide), 2011, UK, 10 mins, 16mm, silent
Untitled (Christmas), 2011, UK, 2.5 mins, 16mm, silent
Astrid Colours, 2010 UK, 4 mins, 16mm, silent
99 Clerkenwell Road, 2010, UK, 8 mins, 16mm, silent
Carousel, 2009, UK, 3 mins, 16mm silent
Shaft/ Ground, 2009, UK, 3 mins, super8, silent
Untitled (Objects 3), 2008 UK, 3 mins, 16mm, silent