Sonia Haberstich – Multidisciplinary artist

The shapes are amorphous, the colors are primary. Looking at one piece is not enough. Looking at 50 pieces on a wall, begins to make sense. I would like to see 1000 pieces displayed. One installation is titled Accept the Chaos. It’s a title that fits perfectly. I think of celestial bodies, of single cells, the beginning of a living organism. Together they create an interconnected system.

These shapes are different in size. They are epoxy and pigment paintings on wood panels. When I visit Sonia Habertich’s studio for the first time, I discover hundreds if not thousands stored in boxes, each unique. She is constantly at work creating new ones. Because for Sonia, the act of creation is an essential part of her process. She tells me it’s a necessary form of meditation that keeps her grounded when her natural instinct can at times lean towards anxiety.

It has become clear to me that my practice is born of my meeting with the materials and the strong pull they exert on me. Technical virtuosity appeals much less to me than intuitive virtuosity.

For someone who cherishes earth-tones, my initiation into Sonia’s world is a shock to the system. A textile work titled Division, Emerging Victorious is a mass of vivid color pompons fighting their way to the surface: bright, almost blinding colored pompons. I’m staring at the piece wondering if I love it or hate it. Is it kitsch? I don’t know how to react.

Each visit into her space draws me in more and more. I become a convert. Yayoi Kusama comes to mind. There is a similar vein running through their work, a preoccupation with the cosmic or life on a cellular level, but unlike Kusama’s work where an attempt is made to create order by repeating patterns, Sonia accepts the chaos. It’s a fine line where she both disciplines herself and lets her mind go.

My installations are moments, spaces in which the body is drawn through the excitement of touch and sight. In the last few years, my work has evolved around daily activities, rituals, repeated movements.

Sonia Haberstich was born in Quebec City in 1960. She obtained a BFA in Studio Arts in 2004 and an MFA in Painting from Concordia University in 2008. Her work has been exhibited in countless solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally and she has produced many public works. She is active in her community with teaching and cultural mediation.

Sonia lives and works in Hudson, Québec in a house shared with her husband artist Eric Simon and their 13 year old daughter. Another daughter lives in England. It’s a remarkable house designed by an architect friend 20 years ago. The ground floor is divided by a central staircase leading up to the bright and colourful living space. On the left, Sonia’s large and airy studio, on the right, Eric’s.

In 2014, she was accepted into the prestigious 1% artist list. This is a commitment from the Quebec government that all architectural projects they help finance should include 1% of the budget for art). This led to one of her most ambitious project to date, where her pieces where printed on glass, mounted on the wall of the interior court of the St-René School in Ville Mercier.

Just recently, she was artist in residence at the Jacques-Ouellette School in Longueuil where she created a beautiful and moving project for the visually impaired children that are students there. She helped them relate to visual arts in a tactile way since some are blind and others partially. Sonia and musician François Martel then collaborated on a multi media project where the children where asked to improvise musical compositions using the work they had created as inspiration.

In 2020, her latest installation opened at VoArt in Val-d’Or titled Incandesence. All the pieces where created using black light and the viewers experienced the work in a dark room where each piece glowed and some were rotated by small machines. This is another step towards a larger idea that Sonia has to build multiple rooms where people walk through each one experiencing the world through their sense of touch, smell and sight.

I am amazed by her trajectory. Almost 60, Sonia is just beginning to understand and follow through with her vision . There is a growing clarity in her journey. Each project has a distinctive and uniquely defining thread.

There is so much joy in Sonia’s explosive use of color, a celebration of light over dark. She has struggled with many personal demons over the years and worked very hard to reach the light. I admire her determination to see past the greyness and drabness that accompanies us at certain times in our lives and can at times overwhelm us. I admire her thoughtfulness and at the same time whimsical touch to submerge us in a world where color always triumphs. 

haberstich.ca