Born in Florence, Italy, Sonia Bukhgalter discovered the historic masters of the renaissance at a very young age. In her mother's artisan studio she learned some of the ancient techniques such as gilding and fresco, practices she would continue to employ in her later work.

The artist recently graduated from a fine arts academy in Florence, where she worked on expressing the concept of spiritual ascension in the modern era through art. However, during the lockdown of 2020, Bukhgalter's work transformed to express a more simple, yet equally divine idea of peace and tranquility. To fill a certain lack in her personal life and those of others she started to use physical landscapes, mainly the sky, to describe an emotional and mental landscape.

"In these times, the freedom to look outside or leave our homes to experience the natural world is not a given. In my personal experience I have found that nature has an incredible ability to wipe the mind clean and remind us of our connection to the world and others, but also of our easily forgotten fragility."

Her work establishes a connection between the vastness of nature and personal emotion. Using landscape and colour on gilded surfaces to connect to a desired state of being, while simultaneously reminding the viewer of their role as just a tiny part of something bigger.