Sophie Hannah Walker East Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Sophie Hannah Walker is a mixed media contemporary artist who has been practicing and exhibiting for over 30 years. Currently her work is about 'The Art of Feeling Better' which is a combination of the therapeutic effects on the artist when creating work and making canvases designed to have a subliminal positive effect on the viewer. Sophie was shortlisted for the Royal Academy in 2019 .
The Art of Feeling Better
My artistic practice arose from the discovery that making art offered relief from an overactive mind and lifted it to a place of positivity. I have since gained a diploma in Modern Psychology and this filters into my creative endeavours.
I paint from expression most of the time, absorbed by the spontaneous movement of paint on canvas. Sometimes I envisage what I want to create first, other times I am curious to see what comes out on the canvas. I love to make positivity paintings which are an investigation into the effect of a canvas on the viewer. This began during lockdown when I wondered whether utilising certain elements such as gemstones, symbols, hidden messages or colour matching would have, for example, a calming or motivating or invigorating presence in a room and could that energy impart itself to the inhabitants of a space?
How could this benefit people at home more than usual? Now we are returning out and about, how could this impact employees or hotel residents or pupils or patients?
I mostly use acrylics as well as photographic transfer, collage or stitch. I also like to draw and add drawings into the mixed media pot. Recycled canvases and unusual materials can be included. Often there is a sparkly, reflective or iridescent element. It will catch your attention in different ways according to position and the light. This is to remind us that the artwork is there. Often we get so used to seeing a painting that we cease to notice it. My canvases twinkle and catch the light depending on position and time of day. This is partly to remind us that it is there, for it not to be forgotten, but also as a reminder that no matter what situation we find ourselves in, there is always the opportunity to view it from another perspective.
Artwork
Who Are You And What Do You Want, Mixed media on canvas, 2018, £3200
Pink Diptych, Acrylic on canvas, 2020, £650
Anticipation, Acrylic on canvas, 2020, £490
A Moment in Time, Acrylic and emulsion on canvas, 2020, £490
Heart of Opalite, Acrylic inks and pastels, iridescent film and opalite beads, 2021, £540
Senses of Roses, Acrylic paint and inks on canvas, 2021, £540
Tiger Spiral, Acrylic abstract canvas with glass beads and tiger’s eye stitched in a spiral design., 2021, £540
Bloom, Acrylic canvas with collaged photographic flower prints., 2021, £450
Melting, Emulsion and acrylics plus stitched sweet wrappers, 2022, £2400
Torrential Sunrise, Acrylic and emulsion with a touch of gold leaf on recycled canvas. , 2022, £1800