flat 70 is a community arts project in SE17.
We exist to support artistic, therapeutic & redistributive exchange between our existing and emerging community.
FIONA SONOLA
the artist
Fiona Sonola (b. 1995, Lagos) aka @powerpuffb1tch is a British visual artist and educator of Nigerian heritage.
Fiona is a graduate of Central St Martin’s in 2020 with an undergraduate dissertation completed on digital subcultures via a close reading of sneakerheads. Her work continues to explore the multifaceted nature of; identity, both online and offline, and conflict, both interpersonal and intrapersonal. Often the work investigates what happens when these two spaces intersect.
Previous work has been included in The Black He[Art} Exhibition
“I’m a very sensitive person and I like how sensitive I am.”
An interdisciplinary artist and educator like Fiona Sonola comes around most rarely and when they do, it is worth suspending time to succumb to their thrall. With influences from her broad triangle of obsessions; architecture, typography and imagery - Fiona manages to subvert the very mediums her artworks exist in.
On display at flat 70 is a collection of works in acrylic paint, gel and text. Painstakingly layered, effaced and encoded 10 sculptural forms that seem, despite their physicality, call back to the digital realm. Each work is layered - a finished piece will likely have at least four others beneath it, a process of experimentation, reasoning and dialectic as the work considers all variable interpretations of itself before negotiating a settlement with the artist's most generative and elusive entry point. She sees typefaces as artworks in their own right; visual layers of added meaning that can reshape how we engage with text. These provide endless fascination and result in a process that begins with choosing her constraint, the surface size. Once this has been chosen Fiona writes her narrative within the confines of her surface.Choosing from a limited selection of typefaces, takes time creating stencils to use as a guide. All this happens, sometimes before engaging with any paint or texture. A lengthy but welcome process that allows her to spend hours considering the multiplicity of a word like: Shift ↩
Even in her earliest arts educational memories, she has been keen to engage with conversations that centre labour and the ways its value is exchanged in personal, professional and artistic spaces. “A big part of my work is the labour of encryption which I put in, and the viewer's job is the labour of decrypting. The intentional actions I take aren’t the definitive meaning, they’re just an interpretation. The viewer will always have their own perspective and I’m super interested in that. Communication and dialogue is key, even for someone as shy as me. We can talk but maybe I just don’t need to be there”
Her photographic practice also confounds categorisation. Simultaneously existing as part of an extensive personal archive, a thumb wearying scroll of all the typefaces, branding and buildings she’s ever loved, her images also require appreciation as individual artworks. Labours of love in photography are seen in her, many repeated walks to capture one building and intense scanning process which often takes days . The results usually immortalise buildings just as the spaces they create are threatened with deletion. Both a physical and virtual flaneur, one of her favourite pastimes is to explore Google Maps in 2008 and see what has changed as well as other sites to see the status of existing buildings. A process of research, physical exploration deepens her consideration for the stories made when we interact with space.
Fiona wields this talent for fascination and obsession carefully through - a practice that is learned after years of navigating educational, social and housing systems. Her artwork provides a space for consistency and self knowledge:
“My creative process is a way to really investigate my own life, as well as come to some form of resolution with my evolving position in the world.”
The destabilising and traumatic effects of lacking mental, physical and studio space; connects her work to the broader mission of flat 70 as a community and artist led site of cultural production. Feelings like grief, exploitation and drama are all transformed through creative self expression into wormholes of meaning making. A sensitive soul’s companion for the journey to the bleeding edge of our digital world - the show strives towards a space where the highly attuned can reset
See Fiona’s work on Instagram