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Sophia Vari

Sophia Vari
October 9, 1940 - May 5, 2023

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Sophia Vari, who peacefully left us, surrounded by her close ones. We thank you for your thoughts and kind words, and take a moment to share Mother Theresa’s “Life is Life” with you, a prayer which she held close to her heart, in her loving memory.

Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is sheer happiness, enjoy it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, take it up.
Life is a duty, do it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is precious, take good care of it.
Life is wealth, keep it.
Life is love, cherish it.
Life is a mystery, penetrate it.
Life is a promise, keep it.
Life is sad, go beyond it.
Life is a hymn, sing it.
Life is a fight, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, struggle with it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is happiness, deserve it.
Life is life, defend it.

Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

Sophia Canellopoulou was born near Athens to a Greek father and a Hungarian mother. “Vari”, which she uses as her artist’s name, pays homage to her native town. Talking about her work, she states: “I seek to take geometry, volume and form and humanize the whole within space. ”One of her main concerns is the assimilation of her monumental polychrome sculptures in the cities where they are exhibited: Paris, Florence, Rome, Turin, Monte-Carlo, Munich, Baden-Baden, Geneva, Pietrasanta, Athens, Tenerife, Beijing, Shanghai, Madrid, Cartagena de Indias, London, to cite but a few. Complexity, elegance, and harmony come together and become one with the intended space.

Since 1970, her works have been exhibited across the world in solo and group shows and as public commissions, and have been shown in numerous international fairs.

Having lived in France, Colombia, Mexico and the United States, she currently lives and works between Monaco, Italy and Greece. She is married to eminent Colombian artist Fernando Botero, and has a daughter from a first marriage.

Sophia Vari started painting at the age of 16, and soon felt the need to express herself through another medium. Travelling to Egypt in 1978, she drew fascinated and convinced of the importance of monumental sculpture. From then, she started to include bronze and marble as fundamental materials across her repertoire. Eager to cultivate her relationship to colour in her art, she began producing assemblages on canvas, in which she “no longer create[d] through volume, but through colour, all-the-while preserving the sculptural conscience and essence of form.”

Sophia Vari also gained recognition for her jewelry work. Her wearable sculptures, or sculptures-à-porter, seamlessly and gracefully fuse geometric lines and sensual curves, experimenting for the past 35 years with a wide range of noble and singular materials.

Her decades-long work has awarded her global acclaim for her ceaseless pursuit of a harmony of form and balance, a signature throughout her career and to this day.

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