Sentient Beings - Sophie McElligott

Created over the course of a single summer week, Sentient Beings gathers a series of notebook drawings made on train journeys to and from work, later coloured in with quiet precision. They record fragments of everyday life, moments overheard and observed, from conversations in offices and pubs to reflections on benches and at friends’ houses. Through these small scenes, Sophie McElligott explores empathy and perception in a world shaped by technology.

Children and babies appear often, their openness and unfiltered playfulness contrasting with adult anxieties about image, self-esteem, and connection. McElligott considers how cognitive and emotional empathy diverge, how emotions are regulated, and how mimicry builds bonds between people. Her drawings become a way of thinking, a means of making sense of recurring thoughts and feelings. At its heart, Sentient Beings is about how we notice and respond to one another, and how simple acts of attention and care remain essential to being human.

Sophie McElligott is a London-based painter and illustrator who turns fleeting thoughts, frustrations, and absurd moments into quick, impulsive sketches. Her work blends humour, social observation, and autobiographical flashes, remaining unguarded, playful, and tragicomic. She has collaborated with Celeste, Harley Weir, Ferdinando Verderi, and Dilara Findikoglu, exhibited at 0fr. Paris, and been featured in Vogue Italia, Dazed, AnOther, The Plant, Ton, Pop, 10 Magazine, SHOWstudio, Teen Vogue, It’s Nice That, Hypebeast, and W Magazine.

New Dimension, 2025
Softcover 
290 x 190mm