Harper’s is pleased to announce Prussian Blue, New York–based artist Sophia Huitema’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The presentation features new works by Huitema and opens Thursday, February 12, 6–8pm at Harper’s Apartment, with a reception attended by the artist.
Across the seven oil paintings on view, the visual and chemical properties of the pigment Prussian Blue function as a metaphorical anchor, tying together a cast of watchful female figures within Huitema’s hazy, dreamlike worlds. Working within a restrained range of blue and green tones, the paintings evoke a moody atmosphere through cool harmonies and dimly lit interiors. Prussian Blue, derived from chemical processes historically linked to cyanide while also used as an antidote to certain forms of poisoning, embodies a rare duality in which toxicity and protection converge, mirroring the emotionally guarded, ambiguous presence of Huitema’s figures.
The tension between beauty and menace permeates Huitema’s subjects. Elongated figures with exaggerated limbs and slender necks slink through each scene, often directly confronting the viewer’s gaze. Set within opulent surroundings that recall Gatsby–era decadence, Huitema’s women bear the markers of high society themselves, dressed in elegant gowns and adorned with pearl necklaces or jewel-studded headdresses. Moving through film-noir settings with poise and a quietly calculating air, these femme fatales seem either to lure their audience into a seductive ruse or to deploy their own cunning to evade danger. In Sleeper Car, for example, a woman fitted in a backless evening gown tilts her head slyly over her right shoulder in a relaxed pose while her right hand appears braced and ready to strike. As rain streaks across the coach’s windows and the narrow aisle stretches into an uncertain depth, a moment of cinematic suspense emerges, evoking the apex of a psychological thriller. In this way, Huitema constructs a world of heightened atmosphere and theatrical tension that opens onto the broader visual traditions and painterly languages informing her work.
Huitema’s paintings draw on a range of art-historical and visual references while maintaining a distinct internal coherence. The attenuated proportions and stylized poses of her figures recall traditions of early twentieth-century fashion illustration and Art Deco design, where gesture and embellishment echo the streamlined finesse of illustrators such as Erté and the theatrical poise found in interwar couture and stage design. Her compressed spaces also suggest affinities with aspects of Symbolist and Surrealist painting, in which shallow interiors and phantasmagoric backdrops function less as coherent environments than as psychological realms shaped by subconscious experience. Rather than aligning with a single historical framework, Huitema synthesizes these influences into a contemporary visual language that moves fluidly between illustration, painting, and cinematic staging. Working outside formal academic training, she has developed this vocabulary through sustained studio practice and close observation, resulting in a body of work that situates itself in dialogue with art history while remaining grounded in a self-directed approach to image making. In this context, Prussian Blue operates not only as a chromatic throughline but also as a conceptual one, binding together Huitema’s historical references and recurring motifs of protection and threat in constant tension.
Sophia Huitema (b. 1998, Portage, MI) is a self-taught artist who currently lives and works in New York City. Previously, her work has been exhibited at Shin Gallery, New York (2025); Harper’s, New York (2024); and Thierry Goldberg Gallery, online (2024). In 2020, she received a BS in Psychology from Michigan State University.