Southern Rhode Island-born sculptor Sophia DiLibero’s work looks as if it crawled out of the beaches and trees of a parallel universe just across the galaxy from the coastal area where she was raised. Anthropomorphic and almost politically scientific, Sophia’s sculptures begin as sketchbook renderings of life in strange motion, whether this life is found around the city or in the sea. Much of her inspiration springs from her childhood fears of mysterious New England marine species and the equally-alien bugs that she would encounter in the summertime. Her work’s investigation of fears that we do not understand lies below the sculptures’ visual surface like would a fish beneath the brackish Narragansett Bay.  The molding of her surreal, science-fiction imagination can be credited to artists and writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Guston, and Magdalena Abakanowicz.

Sophia studied foundry, wood carving, and ceramics at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and worked as an art-handler in Boston before moving to Vermont in search of better access to the outdoors. For her, movement through nature is an opportunity to turn thoughts and emotions into ideas for visual communication. A believer in publicly accessible art, she further utilizes nature as a place to leave hidden sculptures, as she believes that publically-accessible art  begets publically accessible art education.