Join us for an artist talk with Philadelphia-based painter Sophie C. White with a look at a new book of her artwork and a selection of library materials on art and ideas that she looks to for inspiration

Born 1984 in New York, NY, Sophie Cooper White has lived and worked in Philadelphia. PA since 2009. Since adolescence in a rapidly transforming NYC at the turn of the Millennium, she has made small, representational paintings from life of familiar places at various stages of becoming unfamiliar. Colorful paper mache sculptures and experimental sound and performance work sometimes accompany her paintings, mimicking the environment in which the paintings were made and inviting the viewer into the work. Sophie’s paintings focus on the uncanny details of a neighborhood disfigured by over-development, from the perspective of a resident feeling a bit lost.

ARTIST STATEMENT: In response to an extreme wave of development and displacement occurring in my Fishtown/Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, I made over 100 plein-air gouache paintings of my local surroundings between 2019-2024. This book is a culmination of all works from that time, as well as some earlier paintings of similar locations. I hope that this book will extend the way these images connect to viewers as they’re able to hold them in their hands like I did when I painted them. Grouped in relationship to one another, they tell a story of the neighborhood over time.

Image: Painting by Sophie C. White. Looking East Over Frankford, 2022, gouache on paper, 8" x 8"