Meet the artist: Sophia Savagner
- Zarina Isakhodjaeva
- Mar 19
- 8 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Sophia Savagner is an artist who will make you wonder, “What do we truly know about ourselves?”
Her works arouse a desire to crawl out of your skin and explore what is going on in there, deep, deep inside. Her sculptures make us stop for a moment and wonder how the artist managed to reveal our hidden fears and desires. Once you look at Sophia’s works, you will be unable to avert your eyes.
Truly breathtaking, scarily depictive - meet Sophia Savagner.
As part of Insistrum's upcoming exhibition ''Wasteland to Wonderland: Art in The Age of Sustainability”, we had the honour of getting introduced to her art and discussing the mysticism and meaning behind her work.
Can you tell us about your artistic journey and how your background influences your work? Has there been a defining moment in your career that shaped your artistic direction?
I never wanted to be an artist. As a child, I thought that path would lead to failure or even homelessness. But as I grew older, I realized creating was less of a choice and more of an inherent drive. It was up to me to decide whether to ignore it or embrace it.
Although I still followed an academic route, studying animal behaviour and social psychology and eventually earning a master’s in cultural management, I’ve always kept a distance from mainstream institutions. I dropped out of high school, was homeschooled, and later became a freelance writer and translator. I avoided formal institutions and artistic training.
My art has evolved from being in contact with my own distance I set with the world. This sense of distance has given a bit of a liminal quality to my work. The defining moment in my career was when I moved to Greece, where I fully committed to my artistic journey and became obsessed with mask-making.
I started making masks for many reasons. I was influenced by this very common theme of search for identity, of course, as we have in our early twenties.
I catalyzed a declension of themes with the masks: gender, transformation, hybridism, environmentalism, death, desire, sexuality… Basically, they explored the idea of a metaphysical body in contact with another, I think. Today, I’m expanding this idea to the notion of inhabiting the real.
Can you tell us about your participation in your latest exhibition ‘’Wasteland to Wonderland: Art in the Age of Sustainability’’ with Insistrum? What do you hope audiences take away from it?
I don’t have much to say about my participation except that I’m grateful to be involved.
I hope the audience doesn’t take anything from my artwork. I hope they give something to it. That they create their own story and understanding. I always have this wish.
I prefer it when people initially experience artwork without the artist's perspective or context and then acknowledge it. I’d rather people interact with the piece organically, free from the artist’s context. My only wish is that you actually understand that these artworks are about a human experience that isn’t native to Sophia Savagner but is yours, too.
Are there any artists or movements that have significantly influenced your work?
Yes. But I am not interested in sharing them.
COSMIC PARASITE explores the tension between the body and the urban environment. Can you expand on the idea of “martyrification” in this piece?
In COSMIC PARASITE, the concept of "martyrification" is embodied by the seated character, who plays the role of a martyr by exposing his body, his wings, his organs, and his flesh. This process is both baroque and theological. It is baroque in the sense that it dramatically displays and exhibits modes of bodily enjoyment. It is theological because the seated character seems to call upon a higher force to escape his condition.
The tension arises between his suffering and the other character, who cruelly smiles and prevents him from finding peace, either within or outside his body. Through his suffering and lack of ascension, he follows the path of a martyr without ever becoming one. He remains a relic of the urban experience, trapped in his own pain with no possibility of transcendence.
In CORPUS, you describe the body becoming sentient and transforming—how does this reflect your views on human adaptation and identity?
As our technological advancements struggle to keep pace with our socio-biological capacities, there are inevitable consequences and reactions. From this reality, individuals are increasingly pushed to redefine their identities (mostly in a superficial way) in order to feel they still exist. The concept of a detached, autonomous, hybrid body mirrors this shift, following a narcissistic logic. As we are invited to personalize every inch of our ownership, there is a collective yearning to become more “organic” to expand the utopian territory of our bodies. In an increasingly digitized world, this response is natural. The idea of becoming a cyborg or a mutant to preserve ourselves goes beyond mere fantasy.
The idea of a sentient body separate from the self is not new, of course. What is new, however, is our ability to change it—to undergo surgeries, to deform it, to color it, and to have every object around us engraved with our name. Unfortunately, I, too, have mistaken my outer appearance for my identity, so I understand the allure of this false prophet and how easy it is to equate your reflection to yourself. I don’t make masks for nothing.
Both sculptures seem to embody a struggle between entrapment and transcendence. Do you see this as a universal human condition or something particularly tied to urban life?
This struggle manifests in many modalities, so I believe it’s some sort of a universal human condition. However, it also has a unique connection to urban life. In the countryside, the entrapment of the body is often more linked to ambitions and values, but there’s also a deeper connection to nature, which offers a different bodily experience. In the city, the struggle feels more intense and confined as the environment shapes the way we engage with ourselves and the world around us.
There’s a strong physicality in both sculptures. How does the human form serve as a vehicle for your themes of ascension and hybridism?
It’s difficult to detach from the human form when exploring the theme of ascension, as it inherently carries a Christ-like quality. As a devoted protector and advocate for living beings, I often start with an animal figure, though one that doesn’t exist in reality but still shares the same cell type as humans. I believe both of these artworks explore the idea of the utopian body in different ways.
Corpus follows the human form more closely, as it sprouts directly from it. It was molded from my own face, transforming into a full body. This was the first time I worked in this way, marking my shift away from solely creating masks.
Your works center on the sky as an “undefeatable link” to nature. How has this concept evolved in your art over time?
I recently came upon this concept last year as I was making this other installation work (The Burning Cemetery). I was thinking about our ancestors resting in the sky, guarding us, and how, in the grand scheme of things, I was already up above, too, looking at myself and how all my family and everyone I ever knew was up there too, dead. This cosmological link cannot be defeated by any human construction, and I thought that was radically beautiful. There aren’t many things you can’t take away from a human.
This concept is now evolving into a more general idea of “habiting the real” (as I previously mentioned), something between neuro-architecture and psychogeography, not sure yet, but I’m excited to work more on this.
How do your personal experiences and surroundings influence the forms and movements you create?
My personal experiences and surroundings have profoundly shaped the forms and movements I create. I previously mentioned the concept of "baroque transformation," and I believe my work follows that logic—marked by exuberant detail and a theatrical celebration of the flesh that seeks to transcend the body itself.
This need for transcendence arose partly from my struggles with sensory issues, identity and gender, as well as other personal reasons I cannot share. For years, I grappled with uncertainty about transitioning, and mask-making became a way to process this ambiguity. It allowed me to explore the fluid relationship between body and environment, breaking down rigid boundaries that once defined my sense of self. Through this exploration, I developed forms that challenge the limits of materiality and reality.
I see my sculptures as dimensional drawings or engravings composed of countless lines—echoing my ongoing difficulty with defining boundaries. Where does an object truly end? Why have I felt like a stranger, not only to my body but to humanity itself? In the landscape of these questions, my forms multiply and convulse, unfolding into a fabric that disrupts and reshapes reality.
This body-environment investigation was particularly thorough the face as a site of identity. Over time, however, I have come to understand that gender and identity have no limit or fixed meaning, leading me to move away from mask-making.
All these reasons behind my signature shapes explain why my work may seem removed from the social context—it does not seek to engage with individualism or contemporary events but rather to examine something more essential and fundamental.
Your work often incorporates elements of hybridity—where do you see the boundary between the human and non-human in your sculptures?
I don't think I actually see or set the boundary. There is no human in The Cosmic Parasite, but in Corpus, it is more of an elemental being, an abstract unit of a human being. I think just consider humans as animals so from there, I draw no boundary. I seek neither for resemblances or differences.
Can you talk us through the significance of the materials you use? You prioritize eco-friendly materials in your work. How do you balance sustainability with the durability of your sculptures?
I pay no attention to their durability; they are not meant to last forever, and neither am I. When I die, everything must go. I am planning, though, to use more resistant and heavy materials and make outdoor sculptures.
How do you see the role of artists in addressing sustainability in today’s art world?
On one hand, it's absolutely necessary; on the other, there is no efficacy in simply addressing problems to solve them. People are not misinformed about climate change. They need to follow new social norms regarding the environment, not read a book about it. And this is not art, this is activism, it's municipal laws, it's social psychology, it's environmental campaigns. So, I have no idea what I actually think about it.
Your work conveys hope for a “solar future” rather than dystopian posthumanism. What does a solar future mean to you, and how do you express that in your work?
It is a future where individuals can find meaning beyond the pervasive cynicism of dystopian narratives and dare to build something rooted in trust and connection. In this vision, a solar future does not reject the challenges of posthumanism often portrayed in the media. Instead, it acknowledges and integrates them, but with a strength that surpasses despair.
A solar future is one where, provided political stability, people no longer live in fear of environmental collapse or existential ruin. It is a future where humanity is not defined by its failures but by its ability to regenerate, to find balance with nature, and to cultivate a deeper understanding of itself and its atoms.
I express this in my work by creating forms that are not only intricate and transformative but that embody the tension between fragility and resilience. My sculptures do not ignore darkness; they confront it and seek to transmute it into something vital, something alive.
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