Sophia Rosenthal London, United Kingdom

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Sophia Rosenthal (b.1996) was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2024, and won The Judith Tucker Memorial Prize selected by Lubaina Himid, Griselda Pollock and Harriet Tarlo. Graduating with a Distinction in MA Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School, Sophia subsequently won the Standpoint Artist Residency Prize 2024 which culminated in a solo show, 'Golden Hour' 2025.

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 evoke 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. Using layered, fragmented compositions, unexpected textures, and intense colour palettes, I create intimate spaces that reflect emergent qualities of memory that often unsettles interpretation, riding the line between the calm, disquiet and humour. Through the slow and chance-induced processes of painting, I am able to explore memory as impressions that continuously unfold.