Sonia Aniceto
Born in Lisbon, Sónia Aniceto graduated with honors with a double-major in painting and tapestry from the Faculdade de Belas-Artes de Lisboa. As an Erasmus scholar, Sonia emigrated to Belgium in 2000, and completed post-graduate studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where she continues to live to date.
Sonia’s artistic search has established a continuous dialogue between multiple dimensions. Flat and three-dimensional surfaces, both depicted and evoked, dissolve the barriers between painting and sculpture. Her subjects, which have evolved from figuration to abstraction, unfold a narrative that easily moves between fantasy and reality. Recurrent symbolic elements like ladders, fences, and pools, are inhabited in Sonia’s work by historic characters taken from ornamental fabrics, or embroidered to complete fairytale visions, making her surreal universe a welcoming setting for memories, desires, landscapes and dreams.
Whether it is through drop paper, canvas, or thread, Sonia’s material love-affair borrows from her long experience working at the scenography ateliers of the Royal Opera House in Brussels, and contributes to her work as visual arts and scenography teacher as well. All these experiences come to nurture her artistic work, which is now in private collections in France, Portugal, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Great Britain, United States, and Portugal.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019, Rebellious skin, Martine Ehmer Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2018, Daedalus, Melting Art Gallery, Lille, France
2017, Under tension, Martine Ehmer Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2014, FIL/IN, Huis Happaert, Antwerp, Belgium
2012, Penelope’s thread, Trindade Gallery, Porto, Portugal
2011, Texturised reality, Galerie Down to art, Gent, Belgium
2009, Transgressions of the thread, Galerie Libre Cours, Brussels, Belgium
2008, Family histories, Galeria Novo Século, Lisbon, Portugal
2007, Puppeter, Gallery Espace Blanche, Brussels, Belgium
2007, Uma ausência preenchida, Galeria Novo Século, Lisbon, Portugal
2006, Une absence très peuplée, Portugal Ambass, Brussels, Belgium
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021, Canvas of power: installation and performance, Maison du Peuple de St Gilles, Brussels, Belgium
2020, Contextile, Contemporary Textile Art Biennale, Guimarães, Portugal
2019, Lusofonias, traveling exhibition, Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey
2019, 3th International Art Biennale, invited artist, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal
2018, Terra, Huub Hanen Gallery, Maastricht, The Netherlands
2017, Contemporary Art Biennale of Mountados, Greece
2017, All at sea, C.A.P.S. (contemporary art projects), Oostende, Belgium
2016, MetaMoi I, Center for Theoretical Physics, Columbia University, New York, United States
2013, La nuit des femmes, Centre culturel de Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium
2012, TRUC TROC at Bozar, Palais des Beaux Arts de Bruxelles, Belgium
SELECTED PRESS
2022, Obras de capa, Descendências Magazine
2021, Sonia Aniceto, Terry Costa, Descendências Magazine
2017, Sonia Aniceto, Nikola Milosevic, Widewalls Magazine
2015, Studio Visit: Sonia Aniceto, Kurt Snoekx, Bruzz magazine
2016, Entre-Tecidos, Painting and Poetry, Sonia Aniceto and Paulo Pego, Editora Licorne
2014, Textile art around the world, Ellen Bakker, Textiellink Editors
2012, Emission culturelle d’ARTE Belgique / RTBF, 50 Degrés Nord
