Sophie first studied mosaic art with her late father, Quebec artist, painter and teacher Bernard Drouin, who had studied painting, fresco and mosaic in Florence and Venice in the mid-1950s. After his untimely death in 1998, she sought out new teachers, travelling to Italy and France to find masters of mosaic tradition and technique. She found Luciana Notturni in Ravenna and then in France met Verdiano Marzi, who has become her mentor and friend.
Sophie is a member of the Society of American Mosaic Artists (SAMA), a North-American group which annually organizes a conference and a juried show called Mosaic Arts International. Sophie’s submitted works were accepted every year that she entered from 2007 until she was asked to be a juror for the show in 2015. She won two awards from Mosaic Arts International, as “member’s choice” in San Diego and as “Best 2-d” in Austin. She has exhibited in the United States in Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, Chicago, Austin, Lexington, Charlotte, Tacoma, Seattle, Boston, Lake Oswego and Mystic. In Europe, she has won two awards in the professional category at the Chartres Prix Picassiette Biennale competition, and was invited to participate in two exhibitions for RavennaMosaico, a city-wide Biennale mosaic festival in Italy’s capital of mosaic arts, Ravenna. Her work has also been exhibited in Clauiano, Italy and Riga, Latvia. She was invited to her native Quebec City for a modern mosaic exhibition called “forward mosaic” as the only Canadian mosaic artist in a trio of exhibiting artists. She was also the only Canadian to be invited to participate in the “black and white” exhibition featuring 22 international artists at the Maison de la Mosaïque in Paray-le-Monial, France, in 2014.
Locally, Sophie has exhibited at Kor Gallery, and has been a member of the Uptown Gallery Collective since being recruited by its founder, Podi Lawrence in 2008.
As a mosaic teacher, Sophie has travelled widely, teaching classes in many cities.
Sophie has translated and been an interpreted for her mentor, Verdiano Marzi for workshops and conferences; she is also the English Language Editor and Canadian correspondent for the France-based “Mosaique Magazine”, the highest quality publication about the art of mosaic in the world.
Sophie is also a musician, and has been playing violin in the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony since 1997.