Sophie Verger French, b. 1953

« Sokatira » means “Jeu de la corde” in the Basque language. (Tug of War in English). The sculpture was designated to be exhibited at the Oeil de Price Gallery in Biarritz. For the birth of her third child, a collectioner at the Claudine Legrand Gallery asked that a third elephant calf be added to the first ” Sokatira”. This gave birth to a second series on the theme.

I have returned to this theme several times. “Sokatira” means “tug of war” in Basque.

These “tusk ropes” allow me to play on compositions while extending and you just have to watch baby elephants play to realize that they could participate in Basque games.

Warm brown patina with lighter backgrounds

Sophie Verger is a fairy who knows how to transform an emotion into an animal, a sensation, a felling in a recollected memory. She also suggests to us with a lot of humor a lovable identification with the animal model and beyond this observation the fact that in all her work, the child alone has its place with her, spontaneously capable of including the existence of the animal in her own fundamental values.

Sophie Verger combines anthropomorphic beings with human characters, and she mixes the human and the animal world in surprising ways. Through these mutations, her universe becomes moving, unstable, something is falling apart and uncertainty is twisting in it like a rift.

Sophie Verger plays with the pure reason of the look and lies the opposition of her interpretation.

Beyond anthropomorphism there is also, often, the notion of games. With animal representations worthy of Pompon but going beyond a simple realistic look, Sophie Verger sculpts poems, whole tales in one piece...