Sophie Rocco 
Introduction
Sophie Rocco, a wandering and rebellious painter, collected worldwide scanty scraps and bits of things that she brought back in order to recreate a whole universe starting from scratch. Peat, rust, cables intermingle to form the substrate of landscape portraits, laid on tracing paper, like the trace of a face on a shroud. A metaphorical art inspired by free spirited soul.
Sophie Rocco : a few landmarks
Exhibiting since the 1980s, her works have traveled from Paris to New York, from Brussels to Osaka. She takes part in significant art fairs and was awarded several meaningful prizes.
Curriculum vitae
Exhibitions
1980
Galerie Prisma, Vérone, Italy
1984
Galerie Ratko, Pirmasens
1990
Galerie des Ménétriers, Paris
1994
Galerie Jean Jury, Clermont-Ferrand
1995
Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie, Aurillac
1996
Galerie du Toit de la Grande Arche, Paris La Défense
Centre culturel Pomel, Issoire
Broome Street Gallery, New York
Galerie Michel D, Paris
Centre Culturel André Malraux, Le Pecq
1998
Espace d'art contemporain Le Cercle Bleu, Metz
1999
Galerie Emmanuelle Morin-Pitel, Paris
2003
Galerie Alepée-Ebest, Paris
2004
Galerie Grand'Rue, Poitiers
Galerie Eric Dumont, Troyes
2005
Bogena Galerie, Saint-Paul de Vence
Galerie Gérarld Leroy-Terquem, Paris
Galerie Grand'Rue, Poitiers. Antoine Hyvernaut
Galerie d'art, Gordes
2006
Galerie Richard Nicolet, Coustellet
Bogena Galerie, Saint-Paul de Vence
Galerie d'art Klein, Sceaux
Galerie Ardital, Aix-en-Provence
Galerie Grand' Rue, Poitiers. Antoine Hyvernaut
2008
Galerie Polad-Hardouin, Paris
Collective exhibitions
1978
Galerie Raymond Duncan, New York
1979
Communale de Jettes, Bruxelles, Belgium
1980
Festival international, Osaka, Japon
1988
Galerie Laurens, Paris
1996
“Libre comme l'Art 2” Toit de la Grande Arche, Paris La Défense
Salon de Fresnes
1997
“Ouverture Regards sur le monde” Toit de la Grande Arche, Paris La Défense
1998
Salon Art Pluriel, Rueil-Malmaison (Achat de la Ville)
1999
Salon Mac 2000
Salon Itinéraire 99, Levallois-Perret
Salon de Fresnes
Salon de Montrouge
2000
Manifestation Séoul, Corée
Salon Jeune peinture, Centre Culturel de Courbevoie
Galerie Emmanuelle Morin-Pitel, Paris
Mac 2000
Rencontre du Cadran
2001
St'Art , foire internationale de Strasbourg
Galerie Emmanuelle Morin-Pitel, Paris
Rencontre du Cadran
“Au-delà du Corps”, centre culturel J. Prévert, Aixe-sur-Vienne
Galerie du Fleuve, Paris
2002
Galerie de l'Olympe, Perpignan
Galerie Art Contemporain, Rouen
Espace Jacques Prévert, Mers-les-Bains
2003
Voeux d'Artistes, Paris
2004
Vœux d'Artistes, Lyon, Paris
MAC 2000
2005
Fondation Taylor, Paris
Vœux d'artistes, Lyon, Paris
MAC 2000, espace Champerret
Quinzaine de l'art contemporain du Perche à Mortagne
2006
Galerie Idées d'Artistes, Perros Guirec – Hors murs, Paris
2007
Galerie Idées d'Artistes, “La part d'ombre”, Paris
Galerie Polad-Hardouin, “Intranquille Amour”, Paris
Prizes
1978
Prix du Jury, Galerie Raymond Duncan, New York
1997
Prix du Conseil général, Rueil-Malmaison, Salon Art Pluriel
1999
Prix du Public, Mac 2000 – Prix Marin, salon Itinéraire 99, Levallois-Perret
Chat
Statements
"What disturbing art work could do without death so that dusts of life can sow our mirrors? As with extreme slowness, with knocks of thick shade, exacting Sophie Rocco's painting appears hard, as coming from an unthinkable gangue. A crust of material, masking tiny vital tracks, and dried out in the contact of an air emptied of oxygen, dares hardly a dark space of art, stunning of humility, pictorial roughness and so poignant presence."
Christian Noorbergen
"This painting is strongly thought. It expresses a vision and a pain to the world. The trembled, the indistinct, the indecisive, the absence of eyes in the faces suggest well a universe of fear, which owes so much to the soul - the unconscious - that in the reality: because we think as well of fantasies, of intimate obsessions, as of an universe of concentration camp.
But what appears to mark this painting series by Sophie Rocco is the depressed silence of the beings she paints; their mute suffering expressed by their whole bodies and the place they occupy in the colors makes almost unbearable. And however, we cannot divert eyes. They are taken by the painting, as if Sophie Rocco had known how to express what we are, of what we are afraid of, and as if, thus, each of its works was our mirror."
Max Gallo
"Close, too close, we see only a violent and mistreated material. Only distance (that of love? That of mourning?) has allowed this face, doubtless always the same, in that impossible attempt of outcrop, outside the nothing of the absence, of the oversight: face? Rather something which would be neither sketch, but rather reverse, not vestige, but rather its sworn-in enemy. Human being however, of whom the glance cannot separate, protuberance of the nose, emptiness of the orbits under the dark arches, as fossils in a rock, in front of which one could almost pass taken in the bait of pigments, still appearing, however. Then we receive in full face the unthinkable pain of disappearing."
Michelle Viviane Tran Van Khai
