Artist Interview: Sophie Coe

Mountain Waking by Sophie Coe,
charcoal on paper.

As part of our focus on the winning artists from the Gallery at Green & Stone ‘Works on Paper’ exhibition earlier in the year, we caught up with Sophie Coe to ask about her winning piece and her inspirations. Sophie is known for her large charcoal pieces.

Sophie won Best in Show with her charcoal drawing titled Mountain Waking.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your practice?

I’ve always had a love of the outdoors and a curiosity about the world. I briefly studied fine art, then architecture, and worked as an architect in the UK, Asia and Australia before settling in London. Fine art remained a constant passion which slowly grew to take over as a full time occupation in 2020. It’s been fantastic to have the time to explore new techniques and work to a much larger scale if the subject or the commission requires it.

The winning image is very powerful, can you tell more about the inspiration behind this and your series of mountain images?

I’ve always loved mountains, whether walking or skiing through them, to me mountains feed the soul. I spent 15 days walking in the Himalayas, up to the base of Everest, back through the Gokyo Valley with its string of turquoise lakes and glaciers. The beauty and the enormity of it all gave the energy to keep going. I climbed Kinabalu and Kilimanjaro, where you start in tropical rainforest and walk through the temperate zones up to snow and ice. I ski whenever I get the chance, less than I want to! In lockdown I started drawing and painting mountains, having decided, if I couldn’t get to the places I wanted to visit I needed to bring them to me. The studio was full of mountains and seascapes and that’s where my head was too. The small pieces felt like postcards home from imagined adventures, the bigger pieces allowed me to feel present in the landscape. ‘Mountain dreaming’ is loosely based on the alps, it’s imaginary too though. All the man made elements are omitted - the chair lifts, the pylons. But I included ski tracks which allows the viewer to be more able to imagine themselves in the landscape. The clouds give a dream like quality to it. 

My work is all about celebrating and highlighting the beauty in the natural landscape around us. So many of us walk around in a bubble of deadlines and to do lists. I feel so strongly that the more we notice of the beauty around us the better life becomes, not just the big views but the simple things too, the details. 

Shetland by Sophie Coe on Bockingford

Your inspiration is clearly drawn from nature. Managing to express rain, wind or the movement of a wave suggests you have a deep engagement with the elements. Could you elaborate on the different techniques you use to capture these dynamic and ever-changing qualities of natural phenomena?

I find inspiration everywhere but particularly in nature. There’s so much beauty around us, both the big views and the details, I’m in awe of it. I try to capture the mood, the wonder, the feeling of being there, the elements perhaps less visible with a passing glance. How to express the rain? the sparkling light of sunshine on the sea? wind through the reeds? the movement of a wave? the stillness of a mountain? fleeting moments and permanence? I work with various drawing, painting and printmaking techniques. The freedom in my mark making gives immediacy and energy to my work, which itself exudes the simple calmness and beauty of the places that inspire it.

Lake District by Sophie Coe on Bockingford

First I’ll consider what it is I’m wanting to express and why and perhaps what needs to be omitted or included and then think about how. Wind and movement might be expressed by bringing elements out of focus - ink can be intentionally smudged by dragging something across it while wet, charcoal can be smudged with rags or erasers. Oil paint can be blended out of focus to create a sense of movement if adjacent elements have sharper edges. Movement can also be expressed simply by the energy behind the mark as its made. Rain can be graphically represented with line, or the wetness expressed with watercolour, or with transparent glazes in an oil painting. Texture of rock can be created in any number of ways, using printing techniques with textured surfaces, scratching or sanding back, hatched shading or a rough substrate. If I want to express botanical shapes or the impermanence of a shadow I might choose to omit the detail altogether and create a cyanotype. 

Shetland by Sophie Coe on Bockingford

You’ve recently brought out a book, ‘studies in paint, charcoal and print’, it showcases various techniques you specialise in. Do you have a particular favourite?

Not really. Charcoal is the medium I’ve had the most experience with but I love being able to use different techniques to achieve different solutions. It’s also quite useful for me to step away for a while from a medium and come back to it with new ideas after a time working in a different way. Eventually I see myself making more mixed media pieces too, with freer mark making and various techniques in painting and drawing combined.

Shetland by Sophie Coe on Saunders Waterford

How do each of your chosen techniques determine the type of paper you choose? 

It’s mostly about how wet the paper needs to become and the surface texture. If I’m using water I’ll choose 100% cotton paper. For small studies of a sparkly sea I might choose a very rough paper to drag a dryer brush across. For charcoal I want a very smooth surface for full control over the mark making, any white elements in the image are created by working back in with erasers to expose the paper so the colour is really important too. For pieces I intend to work back in to extensively with erasers I need a surface that is strong enough to withstand that too. 

Green & Stone Works on Paper

You can see more of Sophie’s work at: www.sophiecoe.com 
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sophiecoeartist/ 

More on Sophie’s book: sophiecoe.com/books 
Sophie Coe won Best in Show at the Gallery at Green & Stone ‘Works on Paper’ Exhibition 2024
www.thegalleryatgreenandstone.com/works-on-paper-online-catalogue