Sophia Conroy-Iglesias

Sophia Conroy Iglesias (b. 1999) is a British-Spanish artist whose work explores the boundaries between flesh, fabric, and spirit. Working in oil and graphite, her practice engages with historical approaches to figuration while reinterpreting them through a contemporary, psychological lens.

Raised between British and Spanish cultures, Conroy-Iglesias approaches mythology not as distant narrative but as a living lens through which to explore the feminine psyche. Through cropped, tactile compositions, her female figures emerge as both timeless archetypes and deeply personal presences. They inhabit spaces drawn from biblical narrative and myth, yet feel acutely contemporary. Confined within the edges of the canvas, bodies press against fabric and ground. These figures embody a tension between vulnerability and strength, fragility and vitality, creating images that are at once tender, unsettling, and empowering.

Writing is an integral part of her practice. Each canvas is paired with a poem handwritten on its reverse, as if the image itself casts a shadow in words. These texts act as a private key to the work, extending the painting into an interior dimension where language, memory, and vision overlap.

Through painting, drawing, and hand-bound books, Conroy-Iglesias constructs visual fables of the feminine—intimate worlds where history, poetry, and flesh converge. Her practice invites us to witness the body as both subject and storyteller and reflects on touch, presence, and the invisible threads that connect us.


Artist Statement

“My work lives between the physical and the spectral—between what is seen and what is sensed. I’m drawn to the spaces where touch becomes memory, and gesture becomes invocation. In this series, I think of the séance not only as a spiritual ritual but as a metaphor for creating itself: the act of summoning presence through absence. I want each image to feel like an encounter: an echo of something once alive, or a whisper that refuses to disappear.

Hands recur throughout my work as symbols of longing and transmission. They hover around candles, bodies, or fabric—moments of near contact charged with quiet intensity. I use classical techniques to build softness and stillness, but the figures themselves seem to tremble, caught between devotion and disquiet.”


www.sophiaconroyiglesias.com