Sophie Duncan

Sophie Duncan uses drawing, painting, light, and photography in her practice.

She creates works that centre around the voyeuristic act of looking. Blurring the boundary between private and public in our advancing contemporary society. She takes on the role of observer, alienating herself from a subject and framing them through a suspicious lens. As an obsessive ‘stranger’, she is fascinated with the voyeuristic nature of watching and implicating the audience in this act.

Sophie Duncan deploys obstruction to distort her portraits. She manipulates and abstracts to induce a conscious effort by the viewer to interpret what they are witnessing. Her practice embraces insinuation. Connections can be made between the works, exposing a darker, more shameful narrative. Individual anxieties and desires are projected onto the voyeuristic scenes she has created.

Light is an integral tool in her practice. Bathed in light, the figures are captured like engaging characters out of a film. She uses windows to frame her portraits, allowing the audience to peer into isolated moments of vulnerability. Her windows offer a framework for any onlooker to reflect on the life of another and acknowledge a shared existence.