Sofia Bonati’s Enigmatic portraits of women are mysterious and arresting. Most of her works blend women, nature, intricate patterns, and the female gaze to accentuate strength, poise, and vulnerability.
UNITED KINGDOM-Sofia Bonati’s love for art began at a very young age. Watching her parents who were artists sparked her interest in art. However, that interest was not enough to make her study art in college. She studied geology because of her love of nature. Ironically, the more Bonati tried to shake the art bug, the more she is trapped in the unbreakable web of creativity. Unable to shake the intense desire for art, she went back to drawing and painting.
Bonati took up art and started an artistic career soon after moving to the United Kingdom in 2013. In the beginning, she struggled with how to channel her thoughts, ideas, and composition. Perhaps, the greatest challenge was how to implement different art techniques. Determined, she did not allow those challenges to dissuade her from educating herself about her artistic endeavors. Meeting other artists was a major source of inspiration for her to keep going.
A self-taught artist, Bonati’s style has evolved over the years with a laser-like focus on portraiture. Although she enjoys nature and the outdoors, it was drawing people that captivated her. In the early part of her career, Bonati painted men and women. Eventually, she settled for painting portraits of women. Why? Even Sofia Bonati does not know why she focused on women except that the painted portraits of women help her effectively communicate her thoughts and ideas.
Enigmatic Portraits in Pencils, Watercolor, Ink, and Makers
Sofia Bonati works in different mediums, including pencils, watercolor, ink, gouache, and makers. She finds inspiration in everything around her, including fashion, textiles, nature, and street shops. These elements are integral to her compositions. They are effectively combined with the images of women to communicate thoughts and ideas hidden from the viewer. While some feelings are mysterious, others are surreal.
Many of the women in Bonati’s paintings come from her imagination. Sometimes, she uses her own face or a reference photograph to create her paintings. Bonati’s portraits are almost photo-realistic. Conceivably, her major attraction to painting the portraits of women is the subtle complexities of their expressions: happiness, fear, sadness, surprise, contempt, anger, and disgust. Nevertheless, the expression that dominates Bonati’s works is the female gaze. In many of her painted portraits of women, Bonati uses the female gaze to communicate strength, poise, and vulnerability.
Sofia Bonati’s enigmatic portraits of women are mysterious and arresting.
Melancholy is a major theme in many of Bonati’s portraits of women. Mixing pencil, acrylics, and ink on paper, she creates portraits of women who seem to be going through tough times. With running mascara and blush, the viewer is compelled to imagine the story behind the melancholic visages of the women. Sasha is one of the several portraits by the artist that shows susceptibility in women. The portrait depicts a melancholic woman with her blush running down her face, perhaps after crying.
Sofia Bonati’s Portraits are Arresting
Sofia Bonati’s enigmatic portraits of women are mysterious and arresting. Most of her works blend women, nature, and intricate patterns. In some portraits, she inserts images of women into backgrounds of dizzying black-and-white stripes motifs that consume them, hiding the boundaries of their hair and clothing. These motifs are sometimes dense flowers that eradicate the distinction between the subject and background. In some instances, the images of the women are superimposed on different motifs, giving them power over their environment.
Some of Bonati’s portraits of women situate her subject on the threshold of fantasy and realism. In these portraits, she includes fantastical elements like butterfly hats, cloud headgears, and snakes among many others. Anais, one of her portraits from the Butterfly Girls series shows a girl wearing a monarch butterfly hat. Sometimes the women’s portraits include animals like cats, birds, piglets, chickens, and peacocks.
Whichever approach she takes, Bonati’s enigmatic portraits of women carefully capture the character of the women represented. They echo the power and personality of the figure represented. The only constant in all the portraits is the female gaze: it lures viewers into the beauty of the paintings before opening up the message within. By following the gaze, the viewer is forced to become a part of the artwork.
Bonati’s painted portraits of women are compelling and revealing. The female gaze and the expression of the women tell stories of women who sometimes look cool, serene, or hypnotized. In some instances, it is as if the women had too much makeup on. They reveal the intricacy of the female mind and women in society.
Women Portrait Painting
Women portrait painting has brought recognition for Sofia Bonati in the art world. Some of her projects are in series. Several of her well-known series include Girls with Animals, A-maze-ing Girls, and Butterfly Girls. In each series, her painted portraits of women’s faces tell stories about the subject in a way that engenders emotional responses from viewers.
Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele are major influences for Bonati who find inspiration in their treatment of the human form and designs in their artworks. The British textile designer and novelist William Morris, whose floral patterns adorn many textiles, also inspires her. Some of her artworks are reminiscent of the self-portraits of Frida Kahlo.
Although Banati taught herself art, she has been successful both as a painter and illustrator. She has worked on many commissions for prestigious publications including Iberia Excelente Magazine and Vanity Fair. Bonati’s paintings have featured in several exhibitions. In 2017, her work was part of the Late Summer Exhibit at the Sager Braudis Gallery in Columbia, MO. Her paintings were also part of the Public Order Art Show curated by Society6.
Several years ago, Sofia Bonati’s works were animated by the glitch artist Chris McDaniel. You can see more of Bonati’s on Behance, Instagram, and Facebook. Prints of her works can are available on Society6.
Image Above: Sofia Bonati, Esta vez es personal is one of the enigmatic portraits of women by the artist getting attention from art lovers. It was commissioned by the Iberia Excelente Magazine in 2015.
Sofia Bonati: Enigmatic Portraits of Women
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