Welcome to the Bunker Questionnaire, a new series in which we ask Bunker Projects residents and exhibiting artists three questions from Marcel Proust’s famous Proust Questionnaire, a survey that purported to reveal a person’s true nature. We hope their answers and the accompanying photos allow you to get to know them and their work a little bit more.
Sophia Marie Pappas is an illustrator and letterpress printer living and working in Pittsburgh. She operates her own studio and tiny storefront, Studio PDP, in Millvale where she offers freelance illustration services and custom letterpress printing. Studio PDP also houses her mini shop where she sells original work and her own line of letterpress stationery.
Sophia graduated in 2013 from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, where she earned her BFA in Illustration. Since graduating she has worked with a variety of editorial clients, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, Eater and The Washington Post. Always an avid people watcher, her work is bright, colorful, full of patterns, and centered around characters and figures. She works in both traditional and digital mediums, and finds all her work is continually influenced by the rich textures and limited color palettes of printmaking.
Describe yourself in three words.
“Solitary, restless, ruthless.”
Who are your favorite artists/the ones who’ve influenced you most?
“There is a very long list, but at the very very top, miles above everyone else, is Margaret Kilgallen.”
What is your idea of happiness?
“I feel very lucky to find happiness in many different things, people, places, but to be honest I don’t pay it much mind. I suppose if I had an idea of happiness, I think that it is simple and fleeting, flashing up here and there and then quickly dissipating. It seems to come and go on its own accord, and for me, not particularly worth chasing. Right now, I’m hungry, so I would say this is my idea of happiness: After a long and hungry wait, I watch the delicious food I’ve ordered being brought across the restaurant. In that moment, the world is perfect. If I do think about happiness, it would be to note how lucky I feel to experience it as often as I do.”
Photography by Sophia Marie Pappas
If you’d like to support Bunker Projects’ mission to provide a safe, equitable space for emerging artists to develop their practice and create new works for exhibition, please consider joining our Bunker Commons program or making a one-time or recurring donation here. We are so grateful for your generosity.
