Sophie Kipner is a visual artist and writer from Topanga, California. She recently finished a seven-month show at the iconic Hotel Figueroa downtown Los Angeles, where she was their exhibited Featured Artist for both Q3 Summer 2019 (July-September) and Q4 Winter 2019 (Sept-January). Due to the series' unprecedented response and success, Sophie set the hotel's record for the most sales and attendance in their artist series history.
The exhibition, where one painting still resides in the hotel’s permanent art collection, pulled from her current ongoing project, DONTLIFTUPDONTLOOKDOWN - in which she uses blind contouring, the technique of not lifting the pen or looking at the canvas to draw her subjects. Her work has been featured in Forbes Magazine, KCRW, KTLA, Huffington Post, Architectural Digest, L.A. Weekly, NBC, Thrillist, The Fullest, Cinnamon Magazine, Hemispheres Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, Conde Nast’s The Scene, Eat, Sleep, Draw, JustLuxe, Arte Fuse, The Topanga New Times, and Flaunt Magazine.
The short documentary, “Sophie and The Baron”, which premieres March 16, 2021 at SXSW Film Festival, chronicles Sophie’s friendship and collaboration with legendary Rolling Stone Magazine photographer Baron Wolman and culminating show at Hotel Figueroa.
DONTLIFTUPDONTLOOKDOWN originally premiered in September 2015 and has since had eight exhibitions. Works from her ongoing series have been sold into private collections and commercial properties around the world, and have been auctioned off at UCLA’s 2018 IoES (Institute of the Environment and Sustainability) Gala and at Help Refugees, which was launched in partnership with artist Ai WeiWei, Paddle8, and The Cob Gallery in London.
Her debut novel, The Optimist - for which she also drew the illustrations - was named a “Best Summer Read” by The Daily Mail when it was originally published by Unbound in the UK in 2017, and will be published in the US and Canada on March 30, 2021. It has been reviewed by Kirkus Reviews and received praise in The Wales Arts Review, The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Pool, and Shortlist. Other writing has appeared in Grazia magazine (UK), Kugelmass: A Journal of Literary Humor, Amy Ephron's One for the Table, FORTH Magazine and The Big Jewel.
Sophie recently hand-painted the mural at Michelin-star chef David Myers’ Adrift Burger Bar on Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice, California. She also hosted Channel 101’s long-running prime-time show, Everything, which was chosen as a Vimeo Staff Pick and featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. She graduated from the University of Southern California and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
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