Artudio is pleased to welcome Sophia Pichon Riviere, a painter, illustrator, published author, animator, and university lecturer based in Argentina, as our September 2026 resident artist at the Artudio International Artists Residency (AIAR).

Working across painting, illustration, animation, comics, and publishing, Sophia’s practice often approaches the absurdities of human experience through humor. Her work challenges the expectation that art must be difficult or overly intellectualized in order to be emotionally meaningful, creating space for play, intuition, and personal interpretation.

Her artistic practice explores animal symbolism, personal mythology, and ideas of “the void,” alongside a sustained fascination with contradictions—darkness and sweetness, the polished and the raw, the profane and the magical. These tensions form an important part of her visual language and allow seemingly opposing elements to exist together.

Her work has been presented in multiple group exhibitions and published through individual and collaborative print and comic projects.

During her time at Artudio, Sophia will have the opportunity to encounter Kathmandu and the Kathmandu Valley through sustained observation, everyday encounters, artistic exchange, and the experience of being immersed in a new cultural and urban environment.

At AIAR, we value the residency as an open space for artists to pause, observe, experiment, and allow their practice to respond to the place and experience around them. We therefore look forward to seeing how Sophia’s time in Nepal unfolds—what she notices, encounters, questions, and discovers along the way.

Her residency will also be an opportunity for exchange with Kathmandu’s wider artistic community through encounters with artists, art spaces, and local cultural contexts.

Welcome to Artudio and Nepal, Sophia.