Sophie Dvořák studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria and the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland (Diploma/Master 2008)

She lives and works in Vienna, Austria

www.sophiedvorak.net

Sophie Dvořák is a collector and traveler. She gathers images, books, and found objects; she assembles, categorizes, archives, re-archives, and displays these artifacts and fragments with seemingly archeological methodology. The gathered materials are questioned in terms of content as well as form and are set in relation to their previous function and meaning. In doing so, the artist takes an abstract interest in compilations and aesthetic orders that she designs in the course of her work and places them in relation to the original context of the material. Through re-ordering, interpretation and abstraction this material is edited and processed. In her own words, hers is a “subjective research process” leading to works that achieve an intricate balance between the precision of her craft and subject matter on the one hand, and the intuitive process on the other. Cartography features prominently in Dvořák’s ongoing survey of visualizations of knowledge. The map is a surface of projection and signs. In his essay “My Atlas”, Vilém Flusser compellingly plots the challenges of a map projection that cannot be complete nor without distortion. He tells of the shift of the atlas as a product of representation towards itself becoming an activity of representing: “Not history, but the act of visually transcoding history, became interesting.” The map’s limitations as well as its involvement in constructing knowledge and history form the starting points from which many of Dvořák’s endeavors begin their journey.