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. Much of her inspiration springs from her childhood encounters with mysterious New England marine species and the equally-alien bugs that she would find in the summertime.   Her surreallist, science-fictiony imagination is inspired by artists and writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki Murakami, 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.