Sophia Ainslie’s journey overseas from South Africa was instigated by a series of sponsored opportunities to attend artist workshops and residencies in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Having time to focus and experience a new landscape opened up new areas in her studio practice. The need for more of these circumstances brought her to Boston, via San Francisco, to finish her studies. Under the sponsorship of her patron, Henny Kirshon, and the Art History Department at Tufts, she pursued her MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts. After graduating, she received the Anne and Graham Gund award to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, in Maine.
Ainslie is the recipient of the Inaugural Hendricks Art Fund for Tufts Graduates; the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship for Painting; and the Artist’s Resource Trust. Other awards include participation in residencies such as NIROX Foundation in South Africa, Triangle and ART/OMI in NY; Gasworks in London, Thapong International in Botswana, Southern Africa; and Thupelo international in Johannesburg and Cape Town South Africa.
Ainslie is an abstract artist working between drawing and painting. Her work focuses on the connection between diagnostic imaging technologies and landscape, interior and exterior, and the microscopic and macroscopic.
Ainslie is represented by Gallery Naga and maintains a studio in Somerville.
