Sonya Lacey (born December 1976) is a New Zealand artist based in
Wellington. She works with a range of mediums including performance, video and installation. Her works are in the collection of the
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions.
Set be ...
.
Early life
Lacey was born in 1976 in
Hastings, New Zealand.
Education
Lacey graduated from the
Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland with a MFA in 2007.
Career
Lacey's artistic works demonstrate an interest in forms of communication. Her work has been curated into programmes at institutions including the Singapore Centre for Contemporary Art, the
London International Film Festival, and the
Govett Brewster Art Gallery
The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is a contemporary art museum at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. The gallery receives core funding from the New Plymouth District Council. Govett-Brewster is recognised internationally for contemporary art.
Hi ...
. Together with Sarah Rose, Lacey established the collaborative research project ''lightreading''.
Notable solo exhibitions:
* ''Making things clear'' at
The Physics Room,
Christchurch, 2010.
* ''Dilutions and Infinitesimals'' at The Physics Room, Christchurch, 2016. For this show, Lacey produced works using an original typeface, alongside a video installation, with an imagined narrative drawing the two parts of the exhibition together.
* ''Dilutions: Three short films by Sonya Lacey'' at the Centre for Contemporary Arts,
Glasgow, 2016. This exhibition presented three of Lacey's short films – ''Infinitesimals'' (2016), ''By Sea'' (2015), and ''Newspaper for Vignelli'' (2010).
* ''Smooth but coarser than yellow'' at Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, 2017.
* ''Speed Reading'' at NTU CCA, Singapore, 2017.
* ''Newspaper for Vignelli'' at
Dunedin Public Art Gallery,
Dunedin, 2019. This exhibition reflected Lacey's interest in different printing histories across time, and looked to the work of Italian designer
Massimo Vignelli and his proposed redesign of ''The European Journal'' (c.1978) for inspiration.
Awards and residencies
* Awarded residency at the
Banff Centre, Canada in 2012.
* Awarded residency at the Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2017. During this residency, Lacey developed a project titled ''One divides into two'', which derives its title from a
Maoist slogan from the 1960s. This project expanded Lacey's investigations into non-western print histories.
References
1976 births
Living people
New Zealand women artists
People from Hastings, New Zealand
{{NewZealand-artist-stub