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​​STATEMENT​​
My practice is shaped by experiences of migration—born in South Korea, raised in the Philippines, and now based in the UK—I use paint as a language to explore memory, belonging, and identity through fragments of imagery rooted in personal photographs. Inspired by texts surrounding photography and memory such as Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida, my recent work begins with noticing something unexpected in childhood photos, prompting compositions that challenge fixed cultural signifiers while evoking universal impressions of recollection.
Drawing from my own archive as a point of departure, my work is deeply intertwined with personal history. As well as highlighting themes of loss, longing and fragmented recollections that accompany a history of migration, my paintings are shaped by memory loss within my own family. In turn, this has informed a nuanced exploration of how memory is constructed and deconstructed.
Influenced by post-impressionism, cinema, and the materiality of New Figuration painters, I combine methods of cropping, layering, and masking to create textured, intimate spaces that reflect and evoke the elusive and emergent qualities of memory. Through the more poetic, slow, and chance-induced process of painting, I am able to reframe my own notions of memory and explore it as a vision that continuously unfolds and that often unsettles interpretation, riding the line between tenderness, disquiet and humour.
BIOGRAPHY​
Sophia Rosenthal (b.1996) has been an artist resident at Porthmeor Studios in St Ives (2018) and exhibited with Tate St Ives (2018); The Poly (Falmouth, 2018); The Cornish Bank (Falmouth, 2021); Assembly Point Studios (selected graduate works by Saccha Craddock and Jesse Leroy-Smith, Peckham, London, 2019); and at the open studios at the Academy of Fine Art in Venice as an Erasmus grantee (2018).
In 2023, Sophia completed a residency with Museum of Loss and Renewal in Collemacchia, Italy, and in 2024, participated in groups shows, Entranced Essence (RuptureXibit, London); Sprung24 (Prema Arts Centre, Dursley); and Art Lark (Electro Studios Project Space, St Leonards on Sea).
Shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2024, Sophia won The Judith Tucker Memorial Prize (selected by Lubaina Himid, Griselda Pollock and Harriet Tarlo), and The Blyth Gallery Award to exhibit a solo show at Imperial College in the following academic year 2025/26. Sophia was part of their touring show to BayArt (Cardiff), Thames-side Studios (London), and Yorkshire Artspace (Sheffield).
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Sophia graduated with a Distinction in MA Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School, and is the winner of the Standpoint Artist Residency Prize 2024.​​
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If you would like to hear more, follow @sophiaxrosenthal on Instagram or for inquiries contact: sophiaxrosenthal@gmail.com
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