Sophie Cape
The Tree That Bends Will Never Break
Oil, ink, acrylic, gouache, graphite, chalk and soil on board
45 x 60cm
2013
 

A former Olympic athlete turned artist through injury, Sophie Cape attended London’s Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design in 2001, and went on to graduate from the Australia National Art School with a bachelor in Fine Art (Painting). Sophie was one of ACAF’s first arts fellows to participate in the 2013 Arts Can Do summer school in Xucun, living in rural Shanxi and teaching up to 100 children of migrant families’ art classes from throughout the region. Her piece, The Tree That Bends Will Never Break, is inspired by the Chinese proverb of the same meaning, and was created during her residency in China this summer. Australian critic Bill Wright wrote of her work this year, “There is something conspicuously brilliant in Cape’s exertive expression of material form, how in her practice, matter ‘expresses’ itself, forming through processes of primal action, instinctive and intuitive.”

In 2012 she was awarded the ArtMonth Young Ambassador scholarship, as well as the New York Studio School, Drawing Marathon Scholarship in 2013. Sophie Cape is represented in Australia by leading Sydney space, the Tim Olsen Gallery, who selected her as their solo feature artist for Art Hong Kong 2012. She currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia.