Sophia Belkin uses dye painting, embroidery and textile collage to create intricate and dynamic compositions that reference natural processes. Her work is deeply inspired by the lush, humid, verdant nature of swamps in the gulf south, as well as the wetlands in the mid Atlantic. She works from a collection of original photographs that are printed on chiffon and attached to dyed backgrounds using a computerized embroidery machine. The appliqué technique references craft and fashion, while the content of the work mimics biological structures and movements. Like membranes within the body, or cell walls of a flower- the forms appear both permeable and rigid. Calibrating between intuitive gestural mark making and the controlled line of the embroidery machine, the textile paintings create layered, multidimensional environments that imply a constant state of regeneration, expansion and flux. Her paintings explore our inextricable interconnectedness to the environment, and consider alternative futures for our ecological landscape. She uses a lens of sci-fi and abstraction to imagine how our ecology and our humanity can continue to morph, evolve and adapt in the face of unprecedented uncertainty. Sophia Belkin currently lives and works in Baltimore. She earned her BFA in drawing and printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012. She has participated in residency programs in Wisconsin,Vermont, Norway, Russia, and the Narva Art Residency in Estonia. She also completed a residency at the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New Orleans in Spring 2024. Recent shows include Slice of Water at Dinner Gallery in New York, Peeling Shadows at Ochi Gallery in Los Angeles and Ground Swell at Resort Gallery in Baltimore. She had her first solo exhibition with HEMPHILL in January 2025.
