Sophie O’Leary is a London-based painter working with landscape, memory and place. Her current paintings grow from a long lived relationship with the Thames-side gardens and repeated walks along the river edges and urban green spaces between Westminster and Battersea.

She works with oil, distemper, drawing and site-responsive materials such as Thames water, sand, charcoal and handmade inks. These materials allow the paintings to hold traces of the places they come from.

O’Leary thinks of painting as a kind of gardening or cultivation: building colour, tending atmosphere, layering feeling and allowing forms to emerge over time. The canvas becomes a site where weather, memory and emotion can take root.

Her work circles sanctuary, resilience and renewal. Through trees, flowers, river light and seasonal change, the paintings offer a sense of refuge, aliveness and emotional connection within the city.