Sophie Anne Holden

Sophie Holden (b. 1999) is a Pittsburgh-based oil painter and printmaker whose work focuses on themes of personal and societal alienation. She grew up in western Pennsylvania and moved to South Carolina during the pandemic before returning to study Studio Art at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 2023 to 2026.

Most of her work consists of portraiture and narrative scenes heavily inspired by the expressionist and cubist movements. Her works display stark contrasts in color temperature, gestural and expressive linework, and a focus on building texture through either stippling in their etchings or use of oil sticks in her paintings. Her cubist works have led her to experiment with using abstract industrial or clay sculptures as the subject of her more recent paintings, playing off the idea of pareidolia to portray these metal figures with a level of humanity.