Artist Sofia Mistola’s paintings are a glimpse into the mystical world she has created, where women are hypersexual beings not to be messed with. Her oeuvre often depicts voluptuous feminine figures in suggestive positions, gazing back at their voyeur — you. “First, the viewer is invited by the sexuality and poses that often reference pornography or erotic drawings,” she says over Zoom. But, once observers notice that they are being stared back at, the sinister side of her paintings becomes clear. “I like the idea of not realising immediately because you’re drowned by huge thighs, torsos and flesh.”
Born in Greece and now living in England, the 30-year-old draws on Greek and Egyptian mythology to create her vibrant otherworldly paintings. While studying for her master’s degree at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London, she often visited the British Museum to sketch. “I specifically liked the Egyptian sculptures because of how they depict the protagonists,” she says, explaining that she looks to emulate those qualities in her own work. “They are powerful, majestic goddesses to be both intimidated by and admired.”
Since Sofia graduated from the Slade in 2018, she has been on the rise. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions in London, Nottingham, Zurich, Paris, Greece and Hong Kong, including at the 250th Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts and Art Basel. She has also had a number of solo exhibitions at the London-based contemporary art gallery Pilar Corrias and another currently on display at the Portland Collection Museum in Nottinghamshire titled Sofia Mitsola: House of Aquamarina. House of Aquamarina will show miniature paintings by Sofia alongside 33 portrait miniatures from the institution’s permanent collection. The artist employs aspects of traditional portraiture and family trees to provide a history for the characters in a myth she has created called ‘Aquamarina’.
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Sofia centres many of her recent works around her tale, which follows the adventures of two huntress sisters, Aqua and Marina. The pair build an underwater paradise, unaware of a male reptile predator called Crocovelus Niloticuse (or Nile Crocodile) in the water. In a solo show last year, Aqua Marina: Crocodilian Tears at Pilar Corrias, her work followed how the sisters “come across the Nile Crocodile (the big predator of the sea), how they clash, take revenge and reestablish the order of things in their own world,” Sofia says. In a set of three paintings for the exhibition titled Carresses, Celestia Squamata, and Crocodilian Tears (O.H Golden Red Baroque), the sisters appear to lure their predator, rape him and then gleefully execute him. Even as they plunge a knife through the neck of the fiery red crocodile, their happy, round faces and soft-looking skin are undeniably beautiful, highlighting both Sofia’s characters’ alluring and threatening sides.
The duality of Sofia’s protagonists in Aquamarina is inspired by creatures such as the sphinx and other women of classical antiquity, who, like in her work, can have various connotations. In ancient Egpyt, sphinxes were spiritual guardians, whereas, in Greek traditions, they devoured travellers who could not answer their riddles. “I have taken these motifs and have used them in my own mythology,” Sofia says, noting that this includes their physical characteristics and mannerisms. “Like the very soft slight smile they always have in my work,” she adds. “It’s a smile that directs the viewer and asks to come closer, ‘I’m flirting with you,’ but at the same time, there is a danger behind that.”
But the theme of sisterhood and genealogy extends beyond the canvas for Sofia. Her work also takes influence from her own sibling, who she has been painting since she started university. “I had my sister posing for me at home every day,” she says, explaining that the female characters in her paintings both look like her sister and have the same temperament. “For two years straight, she would lounge in my bed nude, and I would draw her. If you ever meet my sister, you’ll get it.”
That said, as Sofia has become more sophisticated as an artist, the form of her female characters has become plumper and softer looking and has begun to emulate the full bodies of women often found in old masterpieces. I have been looking at historical paintings, especially ones about the myth of Diana — the goddess of hunting, the moon and wild animals,” she explained in a recent interview. “Titian’s depiction of Diana and Actaeon in The National Gallery captures the moment when Actaeon stumbles upon Diana naked as she bathes with her female entourage. She turns him into a stag through one furious glance.” According to Sofia, her myth has similar qualities to the story of Diana and Actaeon. “Both myths are about looking and being looked at.”
Sofia’s paintings are powerful in that they subvert the idea of female beauty into something men should fear rather than simply admire in the way women are often judged in society today. It’s a cautionary and hyper-feminist tale which also brings female sexuality to the fore through her characters. “Their enchantment is a way for them to deceive and to take control over their prey,” she says. “Because, in my mind, they’re predators.”
Credits
All images courtesy the artist and Pilar Corrias, London.