Considering Art Podcast – Sophie Perez, landscape painter

Introduction to Sophie Perez

0:00Hello, Bob Chawndy here with another Considering Art podcast in which I talk to an artist about their work and something of their life. My guest today is the landscape painter Sophie Perez. Sophie was born in Brighton here in the UK. She took her BA at Chelsea School of Art followed

0:34by an MA at the Royal College in 2003. Two years later she left the UK and relocated to Melbourne in Australia. She now lives in the Mornington Peninsula south of the city which is an inspiring place for a landscape painter particularly one brought up by the sea. Sophie's works represent parts of the landscape that spark an emotional response in her. Mark making is my language she says and paint is my voice and that voice is full of colour shape and texture as she seeks to create

1:07a feeling of immersion within the scene she paints. In addition to landscapes she enjoys painting still lives as well. Sophie has exhibited in solo and group shows across Australia and garnered some prestigious awards too. On a recent trip down under I had the pleasure of talking with her at her studio in Hastings on the Peninsula. Sophie, delighted to meet you. Welcome to the podcast. Good morning. Thank you very much for inviting me on. Now we're sitting in the Sophie Perez studio.

1:39How on earth did you come up with that name? Well that was a very tricky one to think of actually Bob. To be honest I was going to call it something else because we've recently built this building but for my own brand I suppose and name we thought we'd go mad and keep it the same. We being you and your? My husband and I yes and the other artists that I have in here we had a chat about it.

Mornington Peninsula Artist Community

2:00I mean is this area this Mornington Peninsula and we'll talk about the topography of it later but is it a bit of an artist's hub? Yes it's a fantastic creative community here there's there's well where I was there's about 30 something different creative spaces so this is why we've decided to move I'm a little bit further away over to Westonport where there's about three or four so yeah lots to choose from over this way. Yeah and creatives in all sorts of different areas. Yeah lots of painters lots of musicians writers it's a really beautiful part of the world so I think it's quite

2:33inspiring really. And do you hold residences here? No I don't I don't I mean that is something you've is something I am thinking about because as you know I'm in my new studio here I have built the downstairs studios with a proper ceiling so later down the track is something I am considering of making it as a somewhere so a resident can stay. Now you're from Brighton in the UK what was it like what was your background did you have creative parents? Um no it's funny really because um I

3:03actually don't think I ever went to a gallery until I was probably 16 17 at school. I did music most of my time at school I played the violin so I didn't really do art as a subject until I got to A levels. My mum was good at drawing I remember me and my sister were talking about it the day she used to help us with our school projects and things but um no it's just something I've always just enjoyed doing really on my own. Did you have a kind of outdoorsy upbringing? Yes very much I think we were shut in the garden. No we used to do a lot of walking across the South Downs and ride horses and

3:35mountain biking and being by the beach I used to spend most days rain or shine down the beach with my friends so yes definitely. And did you have any early artistic ambitions? Um no it's just such a difficult I get asked this a lot because obviously I'm very fortunate to be doing it now I think it's more of a of a vocation and something that is ingrained I don't think I ever sat down and thought oh let's do that I just really really really enjoyed it at A level and in England as you know university's fun so if you're going to go to university you might as well do something you

4:06really love not just for the sake of going to university so it kind of spiralled from there really. But your parents didn't say you know you should be a doctor or you know get a proper job? No that that's that is a that's a sentence that was a joke with family friends because my brother's an engineer and my identical twin's a nurse um no they've just encouraged me to do what I love and it didn't really cross my mind that perhaps I should do something that has well nothing's got a

Sophie's Background and Education

4:29guarantee I think if you do something you love you're better off in life. When did you first decide that paint was going to be your medium? Um well in um obviously I don't know if I still do it actually because I've been here a long time in the UK you have to do your foundation year don't you before you go on there so after trying every medium there I just I completely fell in love with the alchemy of paint specifically oil paint I don't think I've used I've never used acrylics or really any other mediums it was just it's just magical it's just there's nothing endless

4:59possibilities of the paint was what's completely sucked me in. Yeah I'm looking around your studio now and you've got about a dozen paintings on the go and yeah because if I'm mixing I like to mix up my own colours and if I've got a big mixing up of different subjects it doesn't really matter what the subject is I'm working on I just like that a first immediacy of when I'm drawing with the paint I feel like there's a million ways to do it but I actually draw with my paint so if I've got several at once I don't lose that energy and the immediacy that I've captured and what's ignited my

5:30interest in it in the first place. Yeah and you went after your foundation you went to Chelsea College of Art then to the Royal College of Art uh how was that experience? Oh it was fantastic I mean going moving you know out of home when you're 19 to go to Chelsea was quite amazing they don't have halls there so I stayed in my own accommodation um it seems like between the two colleges it's hard to decipher which one was which we had the most phenomenal um visiting tutors and artists trips abroad to different places with the school I mean with hindsight I think um I'd love to go back

6:06and go to the Royal College now I was 21 when I did my master's if you don't do it for me I don't know if I would have had the you know the confidence to apply later on but um it was it was wonderful it was absolutely wonderful I'll have a word if you like yes please yeah and when you were there how did they uh what was the focus of your teaching because they don't teach you how to paint do they they teach you what to do with it yeah they were both very interesting I mean it's it's quite it's a bit like a deer in headlights you kind of kind of get to the college and you're in a great big

6:37room with all different everyone sharing a studio and it's almost like there's your studio off you go so you do have to have a lot of discipline and a lot of your own ideas I mean I'm comparing it now because I've been here for about 20 years but I do feel like the um the focus was much more conceptually on what I was trying to do with my work and was there something I'm talking about and how am I approaching it a lot of art history um very much being tutored on an even level with the art with the um tutors they didn't treat you as students they treated you as equals

7:08there was a lot of discussions and critiques and yeah it's just a it's a very interesting way of thinking I mean I've never been shown a color wheel or wasn't shown not like the Royal Academy where it's very strict and structured so you know both both types of learning have their flip side but I think it's it's like your handwriting it's kind of shown me how I naturally want to use my paint and push my ideas that way around yeah was painting still in vogue when you were there because it went out for a while didn't it uh yeah no it was very much very much um in vogue there again it didn't really

7:41matter which department you're in there there's a lot of people in sculpture that were painting and people in painting that were doing video or photography it was it's very open-minded how you could um painting it was probably just the umbrella that you're under and the tutors that you had more than your chosen medium when did landscape become your favorite thing I've always painted landscapes even when I lived in the UK but they were a lot more urban and especially when at the Royal College as I said you're in your studio it's a it's a bizarre thing to think of something quite interesting if

8:12you want to literally paint the landscape when you're inside so I used to cycle a lot I was a I was a bicycle courier when I was um studying there as well so a lot of my scenes are very similar to in here where I run um were from places where I'd been and ideas and I used to do a lot of stuff on building sites and more the urban side I've never really focused on people to be honest it's always been the environment that's interested me so you were a bicycle courier or just delivering messages from one company to another yeah it's brilliant it was a really really fun job yeah I did it in my

8:45summer between Chelsea and the Royal College and then I used to do it on Fridays I got quite good Bob yeah it was fun very fun yeah well if I need a message I'll mention you there but you went more than just cycling while you're couriering you actually went racing with that on a bike didn't you I did that was a complete tangent when I finished the Royal College I'd um by this point met an Australian and we used to do a lot of um as I was quite good at couriering I used to do a lot of local track racing down the velodrome and and just the local races and then we decided to go over

9:17to Belgium just to give it a go really for for my husband now husband wanted to give it a go and yeah we parked behind the um British cycling team and they were short of a rider so they asked me if I could um just fill in for the day otherwise they couldn't start this massive UCI race in Holland and quite hilariously I finished in the bunch and then I um signed up for the season yeah how did they know that you were a racer well I was there with my bicycle and my kit might be the giveaway but they could probably hear me talking obviously being British so they they were very they were being so pleased to be to be met first time yeah and didn't you do the women's tour de France I did I wasn't

9:52going to win it Bob but it was an amazing experience it was it's about three weeks before my wedding which is a shame I fell off and farmed my elbows but um yeah that was that was a different level racing that was that was fun but I mean do they go up these ridiculously steep mountains and things yeah yeah they do they do the same same some of the same passes but it's it's a shorter distance but actually on my honeymoon my husband and I followed the tour de France and cycled up some of the big

Moving to Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula

10:18climbs together yeah oh how romantic it was then yeah then you moved to Melbourne why did you pick Melbourne well just going back a bit when I was at the Royal College I actually did six weeks residency at the National Arts School in Sydney and um I had an amazing time I just was like I love Australia love Sydney and then as I say I met an Australian and he was actually from Sydney so we did start in Sydney we were had there just a couple of months just to get our feet on the ground and then I felt

10:50I felt like Melbourne is a slightly easier transition than Sydney from coming from the central London to Sydney felt really Australian so we decided to come down here and start a new life together really and that was 20 years ago did you move straight to the Mornington Peninsula or was that later that was later we did the they seemed to do the uh the Brit thing and start in near Brighton as I'm from Brighton home from home yeah home from home needed to be near the sea and then we moved a little bit further along and then got three children and before they got too far into school we decided that this was um an area that

11:23we used to visit a lot we're just going to move so I've been here in probably 10 years up this way right well let's talk about this area because it's the one that you paint the topography is interesting isn't it it's wonderfully undulating it's full of woods and wineries golf courses it's extraordinary um what attracted you um I think it was because when I was cycling we used to live six months here in six months in Belgium I used to cycle from from Elwood to Sorrento about three times a week when I was young and fit it's about 180 kilometers

11:58so every time I come up here well I just I just I just literally woke up I said I don't know why I don't live down this way and um as a fellow runner yourself the trails here are phenomenal do a lot of trail running it's it's probably one of the places you can live quite close to the to the ocean but you're also it's like the rugged terrain and straight up against the bass it's just really amazingly beautiful the colors here the sky's huge you've probably noticed how big the sky is over this way and it's even though I've been here a long time every plant and every animal is still

12:31is still different it's still engaging it's still I don't know there's just something that I just I can't actually see myself moving really the trees are very different back to back at the UK you know you don't have the deciduous trees that we have back in England these are a lot of uh gum trees eucalyptus moona trees tea trees that sort of thing how do they differ in terms of what you see as an artist um to be honest I don't think I probably painted trees as much in England as I do here because it you've hit the nail on the head there it's the colors even though there's two paintings

13:05behind you which you can't see but they're actually the same gum trees at completely different times of the year so after the rain they're completely vibrantly shiny in the middle of winter they look like they're dead the colors are glowing in the summer it's just this constant stream of I could paint the same tree over and over again because it's different daily and I just yeah it's just so different but you know in England when we have autumn and the trees turn all those russet browns do you get that similar sort of thing in in Australia we do in Melbourne it's much more seasonal here I

13:36don't know what it's like further up but I think people forget that Melbourne isn't actually hot it gets hot days but we are much more seasonal so yes there is a lot more of a variety in there the birds here are so musical compared to back home they're massive as well aren't they I was trying to explain to the size of magpies here yeah yeah and then the opposite seagulls are small here and yeah in comparison to no I saw a lorikeet yesterday oh did you yeah I can hear it too even in my front garden I mean I'm not in the bush I'm in Mornington but um there's always a multitude of

14:09parrots and cockatoos and galahs it's um yeah it's beautiful they are noisy though aren't they they are they are yeah what about the light because that's something that all landscape artists are interested in how is the light here compared to say back in the UK um well I think from an outside point of view the UK is quite grey really isn't it not all the time I know but um most of the time I mean here probably my favourite time of year is either spring or autumn in the summer here obviously everything's very bleached out because it's super super bright but autumn with the

14:42shadows are huge and long and kind of wrapping around the landscape and light's everything light is everything in photography photos paintings for me it's it's all about the light if there's no light there's no contrast or interest of me to try and capture it even in my still lives yeah and on the very hot days when the sun is overhead everything is almost sort of flattened doesn't it and uh shadows go do you ever paint at that sort of level uh not really because to be

15:14honest I don't I never take my oils outside I'm not someone that's um you don't do plein air I do I do a lot of drawing outside I find that really quick and immediate and it to me I can capture a lot more with with my pencil than I can labouring over oils out in the middle of the midday sun it's not yeah you say painting transcends observation can you elaborate well it's the same to me as when I take a photograph what I think I've seen and what I'm feeling you take a photograph of it or you're

15:44looking at it it's it's it's not what's in my head so to have the ability and the the absolute joy of trying to capture that emotional response and the feeling of the place through this tube of medium is second to none it starts off as a yes my landscapes are from a specific starting point but I like to think by the time I've got through the painting you've kind of got into that flow state and the paint itself has taken over what it is that I've started off I don't want it to be a literal interpretation of what I'm looking at it's the whole it's the whole experience of just

16:19being so immersed in here so do you work from memory or do you take photos sketches both I mean often something it's sometimes hard to pinpoint what it is that's that's really intrigued me why I think I can see a composition in my head if I'm running through somewhere I think oh that would make a brilliant painting and I'll go back I'll do drawings yes I do use photographs but usually take them purely for the compositional reason and then either put them in black and white just so that it's very easy to paint a 360 when you're looking at a certain bit of a landscape you like unless I've

16:52kind of got it into a frame as it were in my head you end up painting everything all around you and it's lost what that immediate feeling was for me that was there you say another quote I attempt to capture the rhythm and spirit of landscape and now rhythm I can understand especially in this undulating topography as we have here you get a certain rhythmical sense what do you mean by the spirit of a landscape well as I've as I've mentioned a couple of times I love trail running here so I

17:23don't want a painting once it's been once I've painted and put the paint to canvas to become static to become still on the wall for me they should still have the energy and the movement and feel it's hard to pinpoint feel the energy or something that spark of why it was so interesting to me in the first place and I I do feel like my colors you know I like I do enjoy a lot of color and I feel like they you know create an energy that perhaps other mediums don't for me and you also say you look for everyday wonders that go unnoticed what sort of examples can you give me well for me I'm those

18:00there's the same paintings that just happen to be here they are really a nondescript neighborhood fence with these trees but every time I walk under them it was one of the lockdown views every single day I could see that the light was slightly shifted the colors are slightly shifted the shapes were slightly shifted and it's just another tree hanging over a neighborhood fence but things that just go unnoticed that get highlighted or you know you can appreciate just I feel like is it's nothing special but it becomes interesting and special to me once it's been taken into a painting and so do you revisit

18:31some of your favorite spots and uh reinterpret given the different times of day that sort of thing yes there's been several that is the same place but as I said like you're saying about the light on a completely different day it's a completely different palette it's a completely different painting completely different viewpoint I don't want the chocolate box view where I'm standing and looking at a vista I like to feel especially I think more recently my works develop more I feel like I'm more immersed in the landscape rather than being an observer on the outside yeah I've noticed that you

Painting Style and Inspiration

19:02don't go for the panoramas do you you tend to go for more close-ups of woodlands and trees undergrowth you know why do you do that well because I'd quite like to feel like that the viewer is is part of the landscape I don't want the viewer to be on the outside of what I've created or it's it's it's a way in you know that's without literally putting a path in your painting it's a way of making you feel like you're actually immersed within this landscape through does you know through 2d medium of paint it's um yeah that's what I think that's why it's interesting me more now yeah

19:36I've always been warned off going into undergrowth and things because of venomous creatures that lurk have you had any close encounters um I'm probably oblivious no I've probably seen three or four in the entire time actually that's a lot snakes well I did a residency last year in um tweed heads up in New South Wales that's very hot and when I was running down in the mornings there was like four or five brown snakes slithering across the path luckily someone pointed it out because I didn't

20:06have my glasses on and I just thought it was a stick but um yeah they don't they mind their own business I've never had an encounter I just spiders I don't like the look of more you you sound like you're still uh keeping pretty fit yeah well I think it's I think they go hand in hand that it's that flow state of running swimming reading and for me and painting you get yourself in that beautiful headspace I think it's it's really important to I like to be completely and utterly focused on what I'm doing and I feel like I've had my morning exercise I'm I'm ready just to get lost in paint

20:40when you were at the uh Royal College and Chelsea you would have studied art history um undoubtedly landscape painters would have been amongst them possibly possibly what about Australian artists have you kind of studied them since you've been here absolutely I mean when you get here and people are asking you know that famous Sidney Nolan painting which obviously every Australian would every single artist I looked up and I had to learn it all again just to put yourself

21:12into context what was happening in our side of the world in comparison to here now so yeah it's it's unbelievable really what is left off each school's curriculum and have any of these Australian artists influenced you um I think I'm more current there's a lot of current I think it's easier you know to be have the opportunity to visit exhibitions and I mean there's some amazing amazing amazing artists here that I'm very fortunate to be able to be living at the same time of and working at the same alongside and there's so many galleries here I mean I do love it when the NGV and

21:47the Australian galleries have the impressionists and some of the European artists it's like a big it's like a big hug having them all back here again and you realize I think seeing them literally here in Australia how far away we are but um yeah yeah I mean last time I was here I went to a you know a Keith Haring John Bob Basquiat exhibition which and previously you have seen Hockney's things that had been on tour from London and so on yeah yeah it was the Bonnard exhibition that yeah I saw that

22:18oh that just that did things for me that did I loved Bonnard when I was it was probably one of my first when I was very started out artists that I loved but just to see all them here now where I live was it's quite emotional really how's your style developed over the years um I think with any any anything you do the more you do it the more you want to refine it and when I say by refine it even though I have become more immersive I'm still always chasing that don't don't fill it in you know

22:4920 brush strokes too much is too much how can I how can I pair back what I'm trying to say with I like a loose brush I'm a very painter's painter I like the I like the paint to do the talking so I think I use more paint than I used to do but I mean there's more here I feel like my with anything you do I've been doing it such a long time now you become more confident in what you're trying to achieve you know it's going to be your whole lifetime to get are you ever going to get to that probably not but it's the drive that keeps me wanting to keep doing it and I'm very fortunate that

23:22living here I have had a beautifully generous collector base which enables me to keep painting and keep pushing and you know that's not something I take for granted I don't just sit around with all my paintings in my studio is that through social media that you've gathered these um yes for a very long time I have done it myself and then I was a joint director of a gallery over here on the peninsula for about seven years I ran my other studio with three other artists for about seven years as well I've shown in lots of smaller interstate galleries in here in Melbourne and last year

23:55I very fortunately have the amazing opportunity of of being represented by Australian galleries here which is I've got to say an absolute highlight for me as a professional and my career um so I'm I do exhibit in a few few galleries which is which is really really wonderful so how do you start a painting then Sophie do you start with a sketch at all or or do you go straight lock in use lots of layers I absolutely go straight in I've got to see it in my head I've got to see what it is that I

24:27I'm I don't just go in blind I have a vague idea of how because I think once you've got if I've got the composition in my head I think it's going to be an okay painting and then I literally draw with paint thin down sometimes I do under painting in different patches so if it was a very big area of sky or green I'll block out all the undercolours first always with a thin down oil paint and I as I said before I feel like I draw with paint I build the layers up but I'm using the same marks but that I would with a pencil I like to use a really big brush I don't want to see every

25:01I don't want to paint every single leaf or every single twig or every single little bit in front of me so yeah and as you said before I like to work on several at once so if I've got three or four drawn out it could be the same place but from a slightly different angle and I can see what I don't like in one or I can leave it and turn it around and it's quite I feel like I can I paint quite quickly when I know what I'm doing and then I'll leave it to dry and then work on another one and and how do you know when you were overworking or overthinking because I'm not adding anything I'm just

25:31filling it in if I think if I'm not sure the best thing is just to just to leave it alone because sometimes I look back and it's really hard balance to say is it underdone or is it overdone and I'd like to leave room for the viewer to you know they don't need to know the specific location but a lot of people can relate to to a specific place and it reminds them of them so you've given them the space to connect and relate without it being literally what it is that I'm painting. Give me some examples of good feedback

26:01Well recently I've had this lovely lady that bought a piece of mine she must be about six or seven years ago and she phoned me up the blue and said every single day my family we have dinner around this table and we find something new in it every day and it still brings us joy so will I do her daughter a commission for Christmas and we chose a space and I did one and now her son really liked the painting and they would like me to do one for their home very different places all different reasons I like it to have a personal attachment to a location if

26:37they would like me to paint something for them and I need to see it in person but that to me was the biggest compliment that she still finds new things and enjoys it Makes a life worth living I notice also that you have several still lives is that something you do between landscapes?

Still Life Painting and Personal Projects

26:56To be honest this was it sounds like a ridiculous epiphany it was in lockdown that I realised obviously we had our five kilometre we weren't allowed out basically in a nutshell for only two years so that did everyone a lot of favours I decided that I am actually not a landscape painter I'm a painter I am a landscape painter but I choose to paint landscapes because I live in this beautiful landscape so it's just a completely different mindset to sit and paint I can paint what's in front of me

27:28and a still life I find so meditative I don't even remember painting it when I finish painting it so yes if I've got some ideas about other work I'll just sit down and literally enjoy the process of a still life and all my still lives I've painted are flowers that have been gifted to me so I like that keeping that every single one and some of them are like five, six, seven year old those natives they dry a muted colour but they keep their shape and their form so it's just a good practice in painting

27:59really as well just to enjoy the paint without the pressure of I don't have to think I'm painting what's in front of me it's a different headspace You have to think about background and things a bit more perhaps I think it's again it takes over it does it work as an image once you finish the actual still life you know considered is the background overpowering do I need to subdue it what's the mood I want in the painting but it's purely about the paint and the thought and I always know the titles as well as my landscapes they're quite personal they kind of Yeah you're interesting one I noted

28:29the joy and weight of motherhood Yeah that was that was when I was on a residency up in Tweed Heads and those who have families understand the constant you're never not mothering and it's wonderful and I wouldn't change it for the world but to get the opportunity to do a residency is quite literally life changing for your own practice so this is only the second or third time that I've actually been away from my children and I was just standing in the Gondwana rainforest with this incredible glut yeah it was really quiet

29:00and it's just that moment where your whiskers are up on your arms and you just think I wish my children could see this but at the same time the gratitude of having that space on my own was just like such a contradiction in my head of like I wish they could enjoy this with me but it was so nice to be on my own How old are your children then? 17, 15 and nearly 13 Oh that's a difficult age Just busy but brilliant but busy And are they in any way artistically inclined? Oh they're all incredible in their own way

29:30the eldest one's a brilliant musician she's also a very good drawer the middle one I don't think is as creative she races mountain bikes Oh back just like their mum Yeah I was road she throws herself down great big jumps and my youngest son he's actually quite a good drawer but he's also very musical and sporty so they've all got their things but they're all very interested and interesting and like me doing this Yeah well Sophie thanks so much for talking about not only your work

30:01your family and everything too thanks a lot Thank you lovely to meet you Sophie Perez there relishing life in Australia thanks for listening I'm back in Blighty now so join me again next week bye for now We'll see you next time We'll see you next time We'll see you next time We'll see you next time We'll see you next time We'll see you next time Bye Thank you.