For Australian-raised, Brussels-based artist, painter, and illustrator Kiama Sophia, art begins with the everyday. Her work transforms familiar rituals, shared meals, breakfast tables, apéros into colorful compositions that feel both personal and approachable. Food, in particular, appears throughout her practice as a way of capturing memory. In works like The Allstar Breakfast, everyday ingredients and table settings become something more than still life; they emphasize the importance of people, places, and moments.

That connection to the familiar is also shaped by her relationship with place. Growing up in Perth, she was surrounded by sunshine, nature, and bright colors, influences that continue to shape her visual language. Since moving to Brussels, the changing light, architecture, seasons, and fuses of cultures have introduced new perspectives into her work, while distance from Australia has made memories of home feel even more vivid.

But beneath the playful colors and approachable subject matter is a more personal side to Sophia’s practice. Her Claiming Spaces collection, including Set Menu and À la Carte, explores her challenges and the process of learning to take up space again. What makes the work particularly powerful is the contrast between its serious subject and her playful visual language.

That same sense of intimacy extends into her commissioned work, where small, seemingly insignificant details become the heart of a painting. A favorite meal, something eaten on holiday, or even a child’s obsession with mango and ketchup can become a visual record of a particular moment in someone’s life. Works such as Deigo’s Breakfast demonstrate how she takes these highly personal references and turns them into something tangible, a painting that may only make complete sense to one person or family, and that is precisely what makes it meaningful.

Across her personal work, commissions, and collaborations, she maintains a visual language that feels unmistakably her own: expressive, colorful, playful, and deeply rooted in everyday life. She does not treat art as something that needs to feel distant or overly serious to carry meaning. Instead, she finds significance in the ordinary and allows personal memories, food, travel, relationships, and lived experiences to guide her creativity.