POPEYE MAGAZINE FEATURE
“8 QUESTIONS FOR SOFIA SERPA ARANGO” - EDIT BY MAYUMI YAMASE
*Scroll to the bottom for the english transcription*
?アートを始めたきっかけは―
と言って」とても上手だね「子どもの頃に絵を描くと両親が Sofía
特に。その言葉を信じて作り続けるようになったんです。くれました
4本格的に夢中になったのは。水彩やアクリルで描くのが好きでした
。猫の絵を描き始めたのがきっかけでした、歳ごろで
?自分のアートを説明すると―
絵画は観る人を没入さ、を問い」価値「や」自己表現「彫刻は Sofía
ユーモアと切なさの間を行。を描いています」盗み見られた瞬間「せる
。き来するような作品を目指しています
?好きな映画は―
『。終りの楽園、天国の口『キュアロン監督の・アルフォンソ Sofía
。心を揺さぶられる作品でした、美しく。です
?好きな色は―
緑と黄色の間にある色に。です)黄緑(シャルトリューズ Sofía
。とても興味深いと思っています、歴史的な背景もあり。惹かれます
?影響を受けた本はなんですか―
。です』ジョヴァンニの部屋『ボールドウィンの・ジェイムズ Sofía
。小説が現実以上の真実を語り得ると実感しました
?自分を一言で表すと―
。です」恩深い、野心的、絶妙で 「Sofía
?尊敬するアーティストは/好き―
そしてサルマン、ボテロ・コロンビアの画家フェルナンド Sofía
。カンタロフスキーです・サンヤ、トゥール・
?今後挑戦してみたいことは―
人前で演奏することに挑戦したいで、ギターを弾いて歌い Sofía
自分で作るものだとは思っていませんでし、音楽は大好きですが。す
。音楽を自分のものにしたいと思っています、それを変えて。た
Unedited English transcript of POPEYE interview below:
Published October 9th 2025 in POPEYE November 2025 Edition
Sofía Serpa Arango - Q&A
-アートを始めたきっかけは？-How did you get into art originally and how old were you at the time?
I got into art because whenever I made artwork as a child, my parents would tell me I was really good at it. And I guess I always believed them, so I kept making things. I remember especially loving painting with watercolours and acrylics. I was probably around four years old when I began to really love it. My aunt remembers how, as a little kid, I would always ask her to draw a cat for me. But every time she tried, I’d get upset and say it wasn’t good enough. So I started drawing it myself.
-あなたの簡単な経歴を教えてください。 -Could you tell me your back ground? Where and how did you grow up etc?
I’m Colombian but I grew up in Vienna, in Austria. My parents are both from Bogotá and most of my family still lives there, but they moved to Vienna in the 1990s. So my heart and soul are Colombian, but I’ve been deeply shaped by the experience of growing up in Vienna. I learned Spanish and German at the same time, and always had a foot in each world. As a child I always felt empowered by my Colombian roots and my second home, but I also felt torn and conflicted, not understanding why I couldn’t live with my family in Colombia. I grew up in a very international community, where it felt like our different backgrounds made us unique. But at the same time, I was also very aware that school teachers struggled to pronounce my surname(s) and shopkeepers didn’t always understand my parent’s strained German.
-好きな食べ物は? -What’s your favorite food?
Before I moved to London, when I still lived with my family in Vienna, I would have said my favorite food was the lasagna my parents made together (they’d prepare the bolognese mince the night before and spend the entire next morning prepping bechamel sauce to layer between the lasagna sheets, just to cook two heavenly sets of lasagnas for my brother and me) or the famous Colombian hot dogs my dad would wizz up whenever we had friends over.
But as I grew up and moved out, food started to take on a different meaning. So now when I think about the food I like the most, I think about what I can cook for myself in relation to time, (fridge) space, finance and nutrition. When asked what my favorite meal is, I think about a comforting but elevated miso salmon rice bowl with fresh avocado, vegetables (preferably julienned carrots, cucumber, maybe some corn), all topped off with fresh cilantro and lime. It’s my take on a Japanese classic and, as a meal, I have decided that it perfectly balances the delicious with the nutritious.
--自分のアートを説明すると？ -How would you describe your artwork?
I think about my sculptures and my paintings a little differently with regards to the things they are trying to achieve. The sculptural objects I create are interested in playing with ideas around self presentation and value. In contrast, my paintings feel more direct in the sense that they present an image, a staged composition, that feels like a ‘stolen moment’ in which someone is caught off guard. Something is being witnessed, someone is being observed, unbeknownst to them.
Unlike the sculptures, which are aware of themselves as objects and intend to play on or indeed reference our presumption of them as artefacts in a space, the paintings immerse you in their world. You’re not meant to think about them as paintings. But rather you might want to lose yourself in the world they suggest. Taking references from moving image, pop culture, film and TV, they beckon you into their world. A stage of drama, of high emotions—sincerity, romance, wistfulness, nostalgia. I look to folktales, fables as well as scenes from my own life to find the emotional anchor that inspires my work. Fiction and history are blurred. Fable, nostalgia, and storytelling come together to form an “invented tradition” — a way of substituting for a lost sense of continuity with the past.
Finally, the work shifts in register, oscillating between the humorous and whimsical to the wistful and melancholic. This movement is very important to the images I make. It allows me to balance a lightness in approach with a heaviness in subject matter.
-今のスタイルに行き着いた経緯を教えてください。 -Could you explain how did you develop the style you have now?
My art style is a result of the actual process by which I make artwork. It’s hard to speak about style because so much of the actual ‘style’ is as much a result of intuitive choices and physical movements as it is about an unconscious consumption of references, artworks, and creative approaches.
I’m drawn to artists like Salman Toor or Yoshitomo Nara, who paint figures with a slightly cartoonish flair. I’ve recognized how much I love seeing them paint figures who seem to feel such deep emotions but who are in all their essence two-dimensional, abstracted, cartoon-esque beings. My appreciation of their work has trickled down into my practice, in the sense that it’s changed my value system and thus what I look for in my work. It’s shaped what I choose to keep and what I choose to override as I work through my paintings.
Beyond this, my style has also been inspired by a collection of artistic movements and references that I was exposed to from a young age. My mother always loved the Impressionists and post-Impressionist French painters. At the same time, just growing up in Vienna, you see so much Art Nouveau and ‘Fin de siècle’ inspired decorative aesthetics in art, architecture, and culture. All of these influences (some passively absorbed, others actively sought out) have shaped the style and approach I take to art-making.
Also, I would be remiss not to mention the influence which my Colombian upbringing has had on my style. Choices like bright earth tones and primary colors, as well as a certain disposition towards magical realism and romanticism, are a result of the values and interests I inherited from my parents. Among my family and friends, it’s often remarked how much the color palette of my childhood home resembles the colors I paint with.
自分を一言で表すと? -How would you describe yourself with 3 words?
I think “Witty, Ambitious, Grateful”. :P
-好きな映画は？-What’s your favorite movie of all time?
I just recently watched Y tu mamá también, the 2001 film by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, starring a young Diego Luna alongside Gael García Bernal and Maribel Verdú. It’s such a great film—beautiful and exciting—and the plot unfolds in an unexpectedly bittersweet way. It made me feel an incredible range of emotions and affected me in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.
-制作過程について教えてください。-What’s your creative process like?
My creative process works in a cyclical way. I collect images and objects that inspire me. I like to work off of visual cues—I might print out reference images or bring objects that inspire me into my studio. But then I put the references aside and begin by sketching out ideas. Sometimes a phrase will come to mind, a snippet—like a line from a script or the type of thing you overhear when walking past a stranger. I like to let language (with all its narrative potential) inspire the way I build a painting. I’m drawn to scenes that inspire curiosity and incite a viewer’s imagination.
I’m a fundamentally curious and nosy person. I don’t pry but I like to know things, to analyze things and people. I bring this disposition to my artwork and let it inspire the scenes I compose. I like to create scenes that make a viewer stop and wonder about the scene that led to this moment. How did they get here? Who are they? What’s happened? The viewer’s curiosity is an essential feature of my work. It’s a way of leveraging our natural inquisitiveness.
Beyond this, I work by layering colors I’m drawn to. Sometimes doing thin washes, other times using impasto. I think the key is in the act of layering. It allows for building strong and opulent color while also retaining the sort of patination you might see on an old wall with paint chipped away. I like colors that emerge from decay or from accidents, the ‘in between hues’ are key.
-好きな映画は？ -What’s your favorite movie of all time?
I just recently watched Y tu mamá también, the 2001 film by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, starring a young Diego Luna alongside Gael García Bernal and Maribel Verdú. It’s such a great film—beautiful and exciting—and the plot unfolds in an unexpectedly bittersweet way. It made me feel an incredible range of emotions and affected me in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.
-最近よく聴いている曲は？- What’s your favorite music/song at the moment?
I’m loving “Fumemos un cigarrillo” and “Mi Viejo” by Argentine singer Piero De Benedictis (1969). I love many different songs for different reasons but these two tracks by Piero hit in a specific way—they strike the perfect cord of nostalgia, narrative, beauty and wistfulness; the things I seek out in (my) art.
-好きな色はなんですか？- What’s your favorite color?
Probably Chartreuse. It’s that middle point between green and yellow. I find myself gravitating to yellow and green hues a lot in my recent paintings and of course my paraffin ‘Duckboot’ sculpture. As I mentioned before, I’m interested in colors that lie somewhere in between each other. At the same time, chartreuse is an interesting color because of its history and associations.
The story goes back to 16th Century France, when a group of Carthusian monks cooked up an ‘elixir’ for King Henry IV, intended to guarantee him long life and vitality. They called it chartreuse. Its colour was hard to discern, a sickly sweet, green/yellow—the colour of phlegm or snot. The promise of returning youth and the sweet poison of nostalgia all bottled into one. The herbal liqueur they concocted became a popular drink that people still consume to this day and it was from this story that the color chartreuse gets its name.
-影響を受けた本はなんですか？ - Most influenced book you ever read?
Hmmm, I think Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin was incredibly influential to me when I first read it in 2022. It was an incredible insight into a character and the destructive potential that self-pity and self-hatred can have. I remember being deeply impressed by the power fiction has to teach us about the way people live in the world. Sometimes fiction can speak more truth than reality itself can.
-絵のテーマがあれば教えてください。 -Could you please tell us about the general theme of your artwork, if there is any?
My practice explores themes of migration and (non)belonging foregrounded through narratives and storytelling, in the forms of paintings and sculptures. I’m interested in exploring universal aspects of the human condition. Like the dichotomy of belonging and not belonging to a place alongside the poignancy of emotions like love, lust and wistfulness.
好き/尊敬するアーティストは？ -Who’s your favorite artist to study and get inspiration from?
I’m deeply inspired by the work of Colombian painter Fernando Botero. I also love Salman Toor and Sanya Kantarovsky — both incredible painters in their own right. I’m drawn to figuration, a sense of narrative, and an exciting application of pigment on canvas. Lately, I’ve been thinking about painters a lot because the show I’m preparing for will be largely focused on painting
今後挑戦してみたいことは？ -Are there any new things you would like to challenge yourself with?
Yes, I want to challenge myself by learning to play guitar, sing, and perform music publicly. I’ve always loved music but never thought of it as something “for me” to make. Recently, I’ve realised I need to challenge that belief. If I love music — writing and performing it—so I shouldn’t deny myself that joy. Life is too short not to.
-今後の予定について教えてください。 -Any new exhibitions coming up? Please give us as details as possible?
I’m very excited to announce my upcoming solo exhibition at the Lewisham Arthouse in London, titled El Color de Las Cosas Idas: The Colour of Things Past, opening on September 18th. I’ll be showing all new work here.
Afterwards, I’ll be showing work as part of the Culture, Innovation and Sustainability exhibition, opening on September 25th at the Yunus Emre Institute in Vienna, Austria. The show is organised by the International Cultural Diversity Organization (ICDO) and sponsored by UNESCO. The proceeds from these sales will go to their programme Following the Maya Voice, which works with over 50 indigenous Maya communities across Mexico.
Finally, I’ll be exhibiting new work as part of a group show of recently graduated artists, titled Now 2025, at Gerald Moore Gallery, opening on October 19th — also in London!