Sonia Góral
FAMILY ALBUM
My name is Sonia Góral (b. 1999, Warsaw). I am a visual artist working at the intersection of photography and painting, which I treat as complementary media that transform and destabilize one another. I graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Jan Matejko Academy of Arts in Kraków, completing my diploma in the Photography Studio. My practice focuses on themes of family, feminist reinterpretations of the mother archetype, and human–animal relations within the critique of the Anthropocene. I have exhibited in Poland and abroad, including Kraków Photomonth (ShowOFF Section, 2025), OEAF – Best Diploma Works (2025), and Bielska Jesień (2025).
Sonia Góral "Family Album"
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Family Album
I work with childhood photographs taken by my father. As part of my „Family Album” project, I intervene in them manually – I print and paint over the images, layering memories, emotions, doubts, and defiance. In this way, I challenge the original narrative, often aestheticized and one-sided.
The photographs reveal my father’s way of constructing our family story and the way I was portrayed within it. Growing up in a dysfunctional family, I experienced constant tension, suppressed anger, and unspoken resentment. Family Album becomes a form of response, an attempt to release these hidden emotions and to engage in a dialogue, or even a confrontation, with my father’s narrative.
I work with childhood photographs taken by my father. As part of my „Family Album” project, I intervene in them manually – I print and paint over the images, layering memories, emotions, doubts, and defiance. In this way, I challenge the original narrative, often aestheticized and one-sided.
The photographs reveal my father’s way of constructing our family story and the way I was portrayed within it. Growing up in a dysfunctional family, I experienced constant tension, suppressed anger, and unspoken resentment. Family Album becomes a form of response, an attempt to release these hidden emotions and to engage in a dialogue, or even a confrontation, with my father’s narrative.
"Family Album becomes a form of response, an attempt to release these hidden emotions and to engage in a dialogue, or even a confrontation, with my father’s narrative."
The images from our family archive are not only records of the past but also carriers of social and cultural notions of what a family should look like. They reflect the mechanisms through which identity and belonging are formed, as well as the expectations imposed by familiar patterns of representation. I am interested in the tension between what is visible and what is concealed, between memory and present experience. I treat the image not only as a trace of the past but also as a space of projection – a place where different versions of the same story meet.