Sophia Wallace (b. 1978 Seattle, lives Brooklyn) is an artist working in conceptual photography and video. Exhibitions include: KUNSTHALLE Wien Contemporary Museum in Vienna, Colgate University’s Clifford Gallery, MiLK Gallery, TASCHEN Gallery, Aperture Gallery, The Assembly Room in London, Carnegie Art Museum among others.  Awards include PDN’s Curator Award, Critic's Pick by the Griffin Museum of Photography, American Photography AP-25, and ARTslant's Showcase Award.

Modern Dandy – Series

Modern Dandy, 2010 – Statement 

The dandy–conventionally defined as a strikingly attractive man whose dress is immaculate and manor is dignified–has been around since the late eighteenth century. Often misunderstood as superficial, the dandy is rather a space of creative possibility where men and women can perform a persona in ways that reach far beyond the narrow binary constructs of masculine and feminine. Indeed artists like Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, H.H Monro and less recognized women such as the American painter Romaine Brookes and her cohorts found Dandyism to be a liberatory space not only for appearance but more importantly, for a life of independence that did not necessarily adhere to a deterministic heterosexual model of marriage and children. Examples of modern dandies include Andy Warhol, Quentin Crisp, Grace Jones, Tilda Swinton and Janelle Monae. My many years focusing on gender, race and constructions of beauty led me to dandyism as a radical position for art making and social critique. Indeed, dandyism’s subversive aesthetic of beauty disrupts normative gender in fascinating ways. Beauty is defined in almost all contexts as the domain of femininity which is commonly understood as frivolous, weak and passive. The dandy is neither traditionally feminine or masculine. Rather, the dandy is an aestheticized androgyny available to men, women and transgender individuals. Herein lies it’s power and it’s danger.
Recognitions

Modern Dandy was a recipient of PDN's The Curator award and was Critic's Pick by the Griffin Museum of Photography. It was selected for Identities Now: Contemporary Portraiture a hardcover book by Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art available in early 2012. It also earned honorable mention in Magenta's Flash Forward 2011. It has been exhibited in numerous galleries including MiLK Gallery this July, the Affordable Art Fair NYC in the spring of 2011, the Chelsea Art Museum for the NUTURE Art benefit in October and more.