Sophie Treppendahl’s paintings explore, “color, homes, and the art of taking care of yourself,” Treppendahl writes. Taking care of oneself, in her practice, means listening to one’s own internal voices, and responding to these voices by way of pictorial representation and the movement of paint on the canvas. Sophie Treppendahl’s work builds a world; in this sense, it reminds us of the pictorial strategies of early 20th-Century French Modernist masters like Henri Matisse and Édouard Vuillard, and late 20th-Century American ones like David Hockney and Lois Dodd.
“Through painting, I aim to capture not the likeness to an image but the overwhelming feeling of the space or a memory. In my studio, I work from recorded observations, often photographs and drawings, that then serve as a springboard to explore pattern, color, light and shadow. When creating, the representation becomes secondary, my primary focus becoming the painting process itself. As I translate reflection, pattern, and shadows through paint, the image lends itself to abstraction, manipulation and exaggeration. Through this, the painting takes on new life. And instead of creating a hollow representation of a moment that once was, I hope to create something altogether new.”
“I paint because I love the people around me and the way they make me feel. I paint the things I want to keep,” Treppendahl notes. “The details are not the details,” as Charles Eames once pointed out. The ways in which we build our own individual spaces - and how Treppendahl builds her paintings - tell us complicated and subtle things about ourselves, our interiority, that of those around us, how we relate to each other, and to ourselves.
Sophie TREPPENDAHL (b. 1991, Baton Rouge, LA) received her BFA from College of
Charleston (Charleston, SC) in 2013. Treppendahl’s work was featured in The New York
Times front-page Arts Section story, “What Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2024.”
Sophie’s recent and upcoming solo and group exhibitions include “The Nearness of You,”
“Take Care of Yourself,” and “The Sky Has a Thousand Windows,” Philip Martin Gallery
(Los Angeles, CA); Haverkampf Leistenschneider (Berlin, Germany); Jack Hanley Gallery
(New York, NY); Hashimoto Contemporary (New York, NY); Johansson Projects (Oakland,
CA); Quirk Gallery (Richmond, VA); Kenise Barnes Fine Art (Larchmont, NY); 1969
Gallery (New York, NY); Carrie Secrist Gallery (Chicago, IL); Heaven Gallery (Chicago, IL);
Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, IN); Ada Gallery (Richmond, VA); Dread Lounge
(Los Angeles, CA); The Broad (Richmond, CA); How’s Howard (Boston, MA); The Southern
Gallery (Charleston, SC); Gildar Gallery (Denver, CO); and Richard and Dolly Mass Gallery
(Purchase, NY). Treppendahl has been awarded residencies with the Golden Foundation
(New Berlin, NY); 100 W Corsicana (Corsicana, TX); The Provincial (Chief, MI); and
The Wassaic Project (Wassais, NY). Her work has been reviewed in publications such
as Booooooom, White Hot Magazine of Contemporary Art, Hyperallergic, and Chicago
Reader. Treppendahl lives and works in New Orleans, LA.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5. For additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 323-507-2037. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065 in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.