Show 2 : Sophie Brenneman

I grew up in the rural Appalachian terrain of central Pennsylvania, and moved to Mississippi in 2010, where I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Southern Mississippi. In the fall of 2015, I moved back to Pennsylvania and am currently pursuing my Master of Fine Arts degree at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Often, I find that my artwork depicts a fusing of both northern and southern influences—from the mountainous terrain of the north, to the bayous and flood plains of the south—and explores the nostalgia I have for the places and people of my past.

Art theorist and teacher Rudolf Arnheim recognizes the effect one’s past has on his or her production of art, stating, “Every visual experience is imbedded in a context of space and time.” In my artwork, and specifically the landscape included in Bullets and Bandaids, I like to walk the thin line between the vagueness and specificity of certain places, and aim to make each piece timeless.

It is my hope that my landscapes evoke a sort of uncanniness in the viewer—a visual manifestation of a place that seems simultaneously familiar and not-known— and that each painting exists as the truest representation of its own world. I believe that similar to how readers identify and empathize with a protagonist in great works of literature, in order for a work of art to successfully evoke pathos from its viewer, the approach must be honest, and its world believable.

In my short time in the art world, I have come to view art is a dual relationship between one’s direct interaction with the phenomenal world and how one manipulates materials to create a visual manifestation of that which cannot be said or written. The language of visual art has the power to transcend social, economic, and political constraints and communicate the energy of the human spirit.