Solo Exhibition at Hemphill Artworks in DC, January 11-February 22, 2025

Sophia Belkin’s lush and verdant paintings implore the viewer to look closely at the artist’s material exploration and references to nature that are direct and abstract.  Collaged from fabric that is stained, dyed and digitally printed, the various components of the paintings are joined with embroidered seams that mimic the veining on the underside of a magnolia leaf.  Belkin’s studio is filled with remnants of stained fabric from a past life that becomes repurposed through her practice.  Small pieces of screenprinted aquamarine denim repopulate throughout different paintings, like cells multiplying and growing across surfaces. Organic motifs flow over the surface of the paintings like water radiating out from a skipping stone, disrupted only by the occasional miniature image of a moment in Belkin’s day: a TV remote, flower from the garden, or New Orleans artifact may appear, making for a viewing experience akin to a curious I Spy book as the artist melds two worlds effortlessly. 

Ongoing series started in October 2025

This series explores the abstracted landscape though the use of the stitched line on paper. Created on a quilting machine, these pieces are comprised of scraps and off cuts from Belkin's painting practice. The repetitive stitched linework comes together intuitively and allows for greater freedom in design and execution. Leaning more representational then the paintings, this ongoing drawing series explores landscape through watercolor painting, textile printing, collage and thread. 

Solo Exhibition at Dinner Gallery in NYC, March 9 - April 22, 2023

From afar, Belkin’s works appear as abstracted forms of plants or water droplets outlined by embroidery, while closer inspection reveals intimate glimpses from her visual diary through closely cropped images of daily objects, nature walks, and magnified insects. Inspired by her time in New Orleans, Slice of Water serves as a poetic response to the city’s complex relationship with water, an element that has built, sustained, and destroyed its infrastructure. The fluid qualities of the surrounding landscape are mirrored in Belkin’s treatment of dye, which is pooled, spilled, and rerouted across the surface, echoing water’s unpredictable movement. These dyed textiles are collaged with digitally printed photographs on fabric that resemble spliced specimens seen through a microscope, resulting in layered compositions that merge micro and macro perspectives and oscillate between abstraction and representation.

Solo exhibition at Resort Gallery in Baltimore, June 6- July 29, 2021

This body of work was inspired by the emergence of the Brood X cicadas in the summer of 2021, and the mostly invisible life cycle of the seventeen year cicada. In this largely unseen cycle, Sophia Belkin explores the infinite potential of dormancy and transmutation, using dye, embroidery, printed fabric, original source photography and hand-applied marks.  Outside of the lifecycle events marked and charted by science, Sophia questions and gives expansive, visual space to the turbulent, cryptic and alchemical changes that are contained within this unseen phase. Her work describes  transforming energies from cellular to cosmic and the time that is spent in that process.  Structures waiver between resolution and falling apart, suspended paradoxically in active change.  After a year that the world related very differently to the passing of time, seeds, larvae, cells, stars and things that once felt dormant could be observed more closely and on their own unique timescales. 

Body of work created in 2018

Fossil water describes a phenomenon occurring in ancient aquifers confined by an impermeable geologic shell. Without leaks or rain replenishment, the water in these underground caverns remains isolated for thousands of years. As temperatures rise, permafrost melts, and subterranean aquifers are mined for fresh water, previously unknown organisms are resuscitated and reintroduced into the world. Fossil Bloom imagines the rebirth of these ancient life forms as they thaw, twist, and float into the light. 

Solo exhibition at Greenpoint Terminal Gallery in Brooklyn, September 2022- October 2022

The Bog Copper is a small, orange-brown butterfly that inhabits cranberry bogs in the northeastern United States, Canada, and a small area in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia, where Belkin developed the majority of this series. In the quest for minerals not found in flower nectar, the Bog Copper seeks other nutrient sources like rotting plant matter, mud, or wet soil. This phenomenon, known as puddling, is marked by dozens of butterflies congregating in one spot, creating a single vibrant, moving mass. The cluster often appears to take on a life of its own -- fluttering, hovering, drinking, absorbing matter invisible to the naked eye. 

The pollinator’s search for nutrients is echoed in the wandering line-work of Belkin’s central painting, while other pieces in the show provide smaller windows into the epic narrative. Appearing simultaneously topographic and microscopic, this journey includes detours and pauses within a larger terrain. Belkin's use of dye painting, embroidery, and textile collage reference these natural processes and complex moments of transformation. An allegory of our own experience and role within landscapes, the Bog Copper's travels are fragmented and nonlinear, yet critical in the success of a larger ecosystem. 

Ongoing series started in 2020

Mineral Alphabet is a series of works on paper that takes the form of an imaginary, cryptic alphabet. Each piece is unique, composed through layered combinations of watercolor, digitally printed paper, chiffon, silk, linen, handmade paper, and embroidery. Drawing from her background in printmaking, Belkin approaches each embroidered shape as what printmakers refer to as a “matrix", an immutable form capable of being reproduced again and again. While the underlying matrix remains consistent, the coloring, materials, and collage elements shift from piece to piece, rendering each work a singular monoprint. The series is informed by Belkin’s interest in language, her own bilingual experience, and the signs and symbols embedded in everyday life. The works explore how meaning is constructed, repeated, and transformed through different visual systems.

Solo Exhibition at Ochi Gallery, Los Angeles, June - July 2022

Sophia Belkin’s paintings draw from close observation of everyday natural spaces, including her own backyard and nearby community gardens. Referencing processes such as growth, decay, and regeneration, the works present abstracted landscapes shaped by shifting light, texture, and color. Each piece is built from layers of hand-dyed linen, personal photographs, fabric remnants from earlier projects, and machine-embroidered drawings. Belkin combines images taken during walks and garden visits, many made during the pandemic, with dye painting and digital embroidery, cutting and reassembling photographic fragments into new compositions. The works balance hand and machine processes, blending organic materials with digital tools. Through this layered approach, Belkin explores the relationship between natural systems and human intervention, inviting quiet reflection on attention, care, and our connection to the environments we inhabit.