Interview with Sonia Roseval
Sonia, you describe tapping into nature as revealing hidden secrets not found in store-bought colors. How does your process of foraging and transforming natural materials—perhaps unexpectedly—expose you to nature’s unique “intelligence,” and how do these discoveries shape your work’s deeper meaning?
I follow a formula in making the color however it remains most interesting how the color interacts with one another. Under the influence of light and ambient air the organic material or ink has a certain chemical reaction.
In other words, after I create the color, it begins dying but continues to live through symbiosis. I believe we are interconnected. In my other series, I demonstrate this differently, but it is still the same, but on another plane. With one, I touch nature; in the other, I touch the mind.
You emphasize unity and consciousness in your pieces. How does your use of natural inks and textures extracted from organic materials embody this interconnectedness in ways that synthetic materials could not?
The latter is processing everything around it. Even after it drys it is still processing or transforming breaking down ,separating.It has nature's behavior encoded in it.
I observe and learn.
In synthetic materials being man made it has gone into the hand of intelligence and is a product of that intelligence. The result is different the intent is different.
Your work is deeply informed by Japanese ink techniques. What do you feel ink, as a medium, brings to your art’s representation of consciousness and unity? Are there specific qualities of ink that align with the spiritual themes of your work?
The Japanese ink pens I use are very thin to me represent the fine line symbolically that connects us.
The fine line represents also thread. My mother brought consciousness to me in giving me life but also through her sewing. The pieces she created imbued her soul.
It imbued me with understanding that each pearl she added diligently was a reminder of our connection.
Your intricate patterns evoke lace-like, meditative visuals that reflect complex layers of existence. What specific inspirations or moments from nature and meditation inspire these forms, and how do you see viewers interpreting them in varied ways?
The intricacy of branches in early winter when the nakedness of the trees dress are eyes and imagination with thoughts on resilience and determination in the vital energy pushing upward sideways in all ways. to exist. Spiritually trees look up at the heavens and represents our aspirations our higher goals in life.
You speak of your art as bridging the tangible with the metaphysical. In what ways does working with nature’s materials make this bridge possible, and how do you think viewers can experience a sense of transcendence through your organic choices?
I think one cannot separate tangible and material...
in the best case scenario if one gets a sense of transcendence that's good but that depends on the person.
If people imagine with an explanation why I draw or use nature's colors to explain consciousness and oneness
then they will have more chances of seeing or feeling that which makes sense to them.
Your work with abstract forms is meditative and deeply introspective. Why do you find abstraction the most effective approach to expressing complex themes of consciousness, and how does it invite viewers into their own contemplative experiences?
I feel for one that I can express my meditative experiences through my mind which is very carthigian .
So the marriage between my intellect and my heart do well together exploring certain movements. Generally people comprehend well repetitive lines, circles, geometric shapes.
My mother did it in her sewing and the practice result put people in awe.
I don't think she new about her intent.
But unconsciously she did.
When you explore the world to forage materials for inks, are there specific philosophical or ecological insights you gain that feel essential to your art? How does the physical act of foraging influence your understanding of unity, interconnectedness, and even responsibility in the natural world?
I feel that nature is like a mother that offers us what she has and allows us to explore all her possibilities.
She is like an open book but we have to deepen our own experimentation to discover her secrets.
How much one aspires will be the measurments to how deep we go and how deep we go will we find more about its secrets.
