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

Sonja Thomsen (American, b. 1978) creates luminous installations grounded in the lacunae of photo history, materializing imbalance, collaboration, reverence, and grief through images and sculptures. Working with photographs, dichroic glass, mirrors, and metallic materials, she choreographs environments that shift with viewers’ movement, transforming exhibition spaces into sites of perceptual discovery. Drawing from artistic kinship with polymathic women whose voices have been historically marginalized, Thomsen treats wonder as both feminist methodology and expansive practice, a rigorous 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 High Museum of Art, Atlanta; 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.