Studio
Milwaukee, USA
e: studio(at)sonjathomsen.com

Sonja Thomsen (American, b.1978) is an artist whose interdisciplinary practice harnesses light as both medium and metaphor, creating immersive installations that blur the boundaries between photography, sculpture, and architecture. Working at the intersection of feminist theory and scientific inquiry, she transforms exhibition spaces into sites of perceptual discovery through installations incorporating dichroic glass, mirrors, and metallic materials that shift with viewers’ movement. Drawing from artistic kinship with polymathic women whose voices have been historically marginalized, Thomsen treats wonder as both methodology and subject. She builds images, objects, and video that refract, reflect, and record light while positioning wonder as a feminist act of resistance.

Her art has been showcased internationally at the Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin; the Reykjavik Museum of Photography; Fonderia 20.9 Gallery, Verona;. Domestically, her exhibitions include the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; Higher Pictures, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; DePaul Art Museum; Soccer Club Club Chicago and The Suburban Milwaukee. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, the MoMA library, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Reykjavik Museum of Photography.

Publications featuring Thomsen’s work include Experiment Photography: New Bauhaus Chicago (Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin, Hirmer Publishers) and Keeper of the Hearth – Picturing Roland Barthes’ Unseen Photograph (Schilt publishing). She is a recipient of the Ruth Arts Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award, Milwaukee Arts Board New Work Commission, Hermitage Artist Fellowship, artist-in-residence at the Active Archive Residency at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and the Josef Breitenbach Research Fellowship at the Center for Creative Photography.

Thomsen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Studio Art from Kenyon College and an MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. She currently serves as Full Professor, Adjunct in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she fosters the next generation of interdisciplinary artists, and works outside the institution as workshop leader and artist mentor.