Soft Play

Sophia Rosenthal, born in Seoul, is a painter whose practice investigates memory, migration, and belonging. Working from photographs not as static documents but as fluid starting points, she combines the visual language of photography with the physical qualities of paint to create intimate, fragmented compositions that evoke feelings of displacement and distance.

She holds an MA in Fine Art from City & Guilds of London Art School (2024), where she was awarded the Standpoint Artist Residency Prize, culminating in her solo exhibition Golden Hour (2025). Rosenthal was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2024 and received the inaugural Judith Tucker Memorial Prize—selected by Lubaina Himid, Griselda Pollock, and Harriet Tarlo—alongside the Blyth Gallery Award.

Supported by 2026 Arts Council England R&D funding and an international residency at Naughty Muse Studios in Busan, her recent presentations include her solo exhibition Recurring Image at Hermon Gallery, Busan (2026) and Between Lunch and Something Else at Galerie C, Paris.

"Through painting, I am interested in the elusive and shifting nature of recollection, and in how an ordinary image can become unfamiliar, fragmented, or newly imagined."

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