Payne 
Polycarbonate  
Polychroma 
Invisible Green 
Nocturne 
Emerald Green 
Decompose 
Denature

Sophie Kitching’s exhibition DENATURE offers a panorama of her most defining painting series, in  which she approaches landscape through color, material, form, abstraction, and visual saturation. There is  no horizon line in her works, there are no borders, and the use of a bright and dark color palette conveys  the sense that the depicted nature is simultaneously close and at a distance. Through the juxtaposition of pictorial approaches, the artist explores painting as an act of transformation. Her light touch contrasts  with denser compositions, reminding us that the expression of nature knows no bound. Sophie Kitching’s  distinctive mark-making spanning across various surfaces invites us to wander in her polychromatic  creations, imprinting the retina in a long-lasting way. 

Her Payne monochromes draw inspiration from a tone of grey used to depict shadows with more delicacy.  Layered oil pastel soaked in turpentine are imprinted on canvas with successive folds of plastic. 

The modular paintings on Polycarbonate use corrugated panels and mirrors to suspend painterly gestures on a translucent ground, while the ridged surface marks the site around it with geometric awareness. 

In Polychroma, a photographic landscape printed in black & white is obscured by pigmented drips. The  accumulation of touches blur the image into a polychromatic field filled with light. 

The Invisible Green series explores the melding of forms and color by time and memory. Abstracted petals  of color overlap and evoke a tension between the seen and unseen.  

In the Nocturne paintings, leaf-like shapes rendered through quick brushstrokes, drips and patterns, elicit a  sense of movement and musicality, while some parts are concealed by shadow and night. 

Visions of flora emerge from dense Emerald Green paintings. This luminous, almost supernatural green  filters the landscape and contains a depth that appears three-dimensional.  

In Decompose, floral elements of an informal garden are spread in an airy composition. The washed out  venetian red base allows for the motif to expand beyond the constraint of the canvas and into a mural. 

Through her paintings, Sophie Kitching aims to challenge and transform the inherent natural qualities of  her surroundings. The different body of works compose the artist’s own landscape, idyllic and pastoral,  natural and wild, contained and multihyphenate. Her experimentations offer an intimate overview into her  conceptual approach towards landscape painting, exploring the margin between control and nature.
 
Sophie Kitching (b. 1990, UK, lives and works in NYC) graduated from École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and School of Visual Arts, New York. Kitching works with installations, paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. With a poetic exploration of environment and natural phenomena, Kitching offers curious reflections on the concepts of space and reality. Through an alluring and inviting materiality, she creates atmospheres of both utopic otherworldliness and a grounded familiarity for the viewer to enter. 
 
Kitching has exhibited with solo shows at Isabelle Gounod Gallery, Paris (2024), The Finch Project, London (2023); 3A Gallery, New York (2023); Alice Folker Gallery, Copenhagen (2022); Galerie Isabelle Gounod, Paris (2022); PS122 Gallery, New York (2022); Park Hyatt, New York (2021) and Galerie Vaste Horizon, Arles (2019). Her latest duo and group exhibitions include shows at C1760, New York (2023); Nosbaum Reding, Bruxelles (2023); FRAC Grand Large – Hauts de France, Dunkirk (2023); KENZO Marais, Paris (2019) and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2017). 
 
In 2016, Sophie Kitching was nominated for the ‘Bourse Révélations Emerige’ in Paris. In 2017, she inaugurated the artist residency at Maison de Chateaubriand in Châtenay-Malabry, and Lienart published her first monographic catalogue Nuits Américaines. The same year, she created sets for Kader Belarbi’s Ballet Don Quichotte at Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse. In 2018-2022, she was awarded a studio residency as part of Painting Space 122 in New York. During Frieze NY 2022, Kitching exhibited at House of Ruinart’s Maison 1729 and created a limited-edition of Second Skin Magnums and in 2023, during Paris Fashion Week - Haute Couture, she created two limited-edition Serpenti Forever Handbags in collaboration with BVLGARI. His works can be found in collections including Art Observed in New York, Maison Ruinart in Reims, Daniel Humm in New York, and Library of EnsAD in Paris.