?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.?
(William Wright, Eminent Curator, 18/03/2013)
Sophie Cape?s works are both visceral and dramatic. They are like a memoir, each picture containing a vivid, expressive moment. Painting en plein air in the landscape, the works are intensely exposed to the elements as Cape sleeps outdoors with them for weeks at a time. The works are alluring, for their explosion of energy and for the honesty and pure physicality in the mark making. Her current show with Olsen Irwin Gallery MAGISTRA NATURA is a vast body of work, including new paintings and etchings in collaboration with master printmaker John Loane. Olsen Irwin gallery sat down with Sophie to discuss her practice and the way she works.? Interview by Ellie Waterhouse Your current show is called MAGISTRA NATURA, what is the significance of the title for you? The title basically translates as Nature is my Mistress, or my teacher? my inspiration. For me, Nature encompasses not only the landscape but also humanity.? I am interested in the extremities of life. Of exploring the space where beauty and horror meet. Because in life one cannot exist without the other. Be it the contrast of cruelty and kindness in humanity, or survival and decay in the landscape. We believe we can control this world and ourselves, but as Nature is forever showing us, it is a force beyond us. I find that away from the protection of the city, I am exposed directly to the true power and brutality of this. It is ever present in the desert?s heat, the ocean?s turmoil or a mountain?s snow covered peaks. I seek to explore this contrast of awe and danger where beauty transcends into the Sublime. Working thick in the heart of these places, I am exposed to these uncontrollable elements. In making this show I was caught in many debilitating weather conditions, from extreme heat waves to bushfires, floods and wind storms. However this fascilitates a raw, instinctive and emotional response, where I am able to explore not a literal interpretation, but the essence or ?duende? of the place. Having recently returned from a year of European residencies I felt I needed to go back to the heart of Australia, where I connect with its deep, ancient, resonating, primal pulse. [gallery ids="127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141"] Your works appear to be a reservoir of emotion and expression. Do you consider these works to be self portraits? Very much so. Every work I make is deeply autobiographical. Though they appear as abstract landscapes, they are self-portraits, facilitating for me a very necessary therapeutic and cathartic release. I have found that rather than painting a literal representation of the figure, using my body as the very tool itself frees me to explore both the internal and external landscape and past and present experience. The almost ?performative? process allows me to excavate the psychological and physical elements of the tragedy that is our human condition. Your practice explores physical limits of memory and subjectivity, oscillating between abstraction and figuration. What motivates you to paint in this style? Is there anything that you consistently draw inspiration from? My past as a professional athlete has had a profound impact upon my process. Having spent years training my body to it?s limits, of constantly challenging the boundaries between human and nature, and of man as machine. I find I need to work outdoors for weeks at a time, leaving the works out in the weather to be infiltrated by the local environment. Free from the constraints of the studio, it opens the process to the instinctive and the accidental. The canvas no longer a four edged container, merely a piece of the landscape that I can explode across. You have defined your work as offering a ?theatrical encounter with the spectator? in order to ?break through language, to touch life?. How does the performative aspect of your work help you connect with your audience? That quote comes from the French theatre maker Artonin Artaud. He has been a great influence upon the way I perceive the role of art and the audience. I believe art should affect the audience. Through my involvement in theatre and performance, I have been struck by the raw and immediate response that it can affect upon the viewer. I want the? audience to be engulfed in the drama of the work. To experience it in an almost physical way. As if they could literally walk into the canvas. So that there is a performative interaction between viewer and image, carried over from the place and it?s creation. The scale of the canvas? is quite large as it is necessary for the demands of the physical almost violent process in which I engage. It is this process itself, that is for me the artwork, the self-portrait, and the canvas is the trace of this event. You work with a wide range of materials. Tell us about what you use in your works. I work organically, with the place that I am in. When the canvas? are outside the local soil, wild animals and weather inevitably end up infiltrating the work. I use anything from soil to salt, charcoal to blood, bitumen to bone as materials.? Trees, shrubs, burnt branches and barbed wire become tools for painting and drawing. Which of course makes each work idiosyncratic to the place it is created in. With the etching plates and paper I left them in creek beds, dropped them off cliffs, dragged them behind trucks, over barbed wire, burnt them and buried them. So much so that in the end I had an almost impossible task of finding them all again! So I guess, nature is in fact as much the artist as I am. For such a young artist, you have been awarded numerous accolades, residencies and had some great achievements thus far. Are there any key moments on your journey so far you would like to tell us about? I spent last year undertaking a series of residencies throughout Europe. Beginning in Paris, I discovered in the French people have the most incredible appreciation, value and love for culture and humanity. Always taking the time out to pause and engage with one another and the world. Down in the catacombs crowded with over 6 million skeletons, buried before Australia was even discovered, I was truly humbled by the length and depth of their history. I managed to gain private access to stay down there for days and nights in the dark working on a series of large canvas?. In a later residency in the Austrian Alps, I had a uniquely contrasting experience. I undertook a series of work outside in their very white and very cold desert. The extreme temperatures and excessive amount of snow caused unexpected reactions in the materials, and the resulting works. Eventually being consumed by an avalanche, taking days of digging to find them! From there I exhibited at the International Hong Kong Art Fair in a solo show with the works from Europe. Where I was exposed to all the major international galleries, collectors and artists receiving a crash course in the great force that is the upper echelons of the international art world. Interview by Ellie Waterhouse
