Blackqube

SOPHIE TREPPENDAHL

Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, presents “The Nearness of You,” a solo exhibition of new works by New Orleans-based painter Sophie Treppendahl.

Like a scene by Édouard Vuillard, Sophie Treppendahl’s paintings present familiar places to which we have never been. Her interiors are warm and inviting. Comfortable and full of reading, art-making, eating, cooking – life. The placement of Treppendahl’s objects is particular.

She composes “in the flatbed,” meaning that she builds her composition with an eye not only to perspectival space, but also to the flatness of the picture plane, with shape, line and color pushing and pulling, moving the viewer’s eye. In Treppendahl’s work, the viewer often sees the passing of time: things that happened; things waiting to happen.

The viewer sees the remains of a dinner party, the light moving through a room, opened books a reader has enjoyed. As viewers we follow this same trajectory, moving through Treppendahl’s paintings at our own pace, in our own space, in our own time.

Sophie Treppendahl explains: “This year I’ve found myself fixated on my day to day—my routines, my studio life, and my evolving body—awaiting and sometimes fretting about the impending changes, attempting to prepare for the inevitable discomfort and the unknowable (thankfully now I know, wonderful) life I’d have once he arrived. This exhibition is titled after the song “The Nearness of You,” specifically my favorite version, which is sung by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.”

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.