Sophie Schwartz, “Isabel, Cleveland Heights”, 2020
Sophie Schwartz, “Isabel, Cleveland Heights”, 2020
Most of the photographic work I’ve made in the past year has been connected to both the concept and more so, the feeling, of home. My own definition and feeling of home have become sticky. I have found myself turning inward, trying to find a sense of home that is not tied to a physical location. This process has pushed me to turn the camera increasingly towards my body and myself – and also towards my partner, Isabel. She has provided the safe, comforting feeling of home throughout the whirlwind of this year. The image in this exhibition is a collision of the feeling I associate with home and the physical space I consider home. We made this image together, during a month-long visit to Cleveland this past summer, in the backyard of my childhood home.
Sophie Schwartz is a Cleveland-born artist living in New York City. Their work explores grief, memory, and queer connection, working primarily with a large-format view camera. They graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Modern Culture + Media program at Brown University and were invited to be an artist-in-residence for the Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion residency program in 2018-2019. Currently, they are the photography editor of PIQUE and work at The Penumbra Foundation.