Visual artist Sophie Steengracht (1991) won the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation Prize in 2018. Sophie journeyed to Peru in June 2018, traveling to Manu National Park, a pristine part of the Amazon where people are completely dependent on nature.
Part of the Inspiration series, the book featuring her work entitled, Sophie Steengracht in Peru, was written by Vanessa Everts and published by Waanders. Sophie’s work was on display at Singer Laren between 27 November 2018 and 2 December 2018.
Sophie Steengracht is a visual artist. Sophie studied graphic techniques at the Scuola Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, an educational course focused on engineering. In 2015 she graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Here, she was able to create a balance between her technical knowledge and the development of own artistic style.
You can find Sophie in her studio: a barn behind a farmhouse where cat named Bingo keeps her company. Surrounded by meadows and forest, she creates colorful paintings and murals. She loves to take photographs, and creates metal sculptures in her father’s welding shop.
Sophie draws her greatest inspiration from travel, literature and nature. Her travels through India, for example, had a great impact on her. The bright colors and various cultures, embedded in everyday life, intrigued Sophie. She later incorporated the pigments she took with her into her sketches and paintings. Traveling introduced Sophie to the stories that different peoples and places have to tell. Indigenous art, myths, folklore and magical realism in literature are the main foundations of her work.
Sophie is fascinated by nature. This, of course, also encompasses her concern about the impact humans are having on the future of the natural world. In our current geological era, the relationship between humans and their environment is visibly changing. Globalization and technological advancements are moving humans further away from natural resources.
Sophie is a socially engaged artist with a positive point of view. With her colorful paintings, she aims to show the power and beauty of nature and demonstrate that it is worth handling in a respectful and conscious manner. Sophie is affiliated with the collective The Earth Issue in London, a group of artists who put nature and the environment at the center of their works.
Having read about it, Sophie was already familiar with the Manu Biosphere, a pristine part of the Amazon. Vincent Mock, a former winner of the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation Grant, put her in touch with a primatologist at one of the few organizations allowed to show visitors around this reserve. It is an area of virtually unparalleled biodiversity, located on the slopes and along the banks of the Rio Alto Madre de Dios and the Rio Manu, east of Cusco. This place offered Sophie the possibility to explore new shapes, colors and textures. The culture of the indigenous people so in tune with nature, was another factor that spoke to Sophie. During her trip, she saw much of the rainforest and its biodiversity. These influences can be seen in her work. A plethora of colors, thin lines, organic shapes and dots can be found in her art. She was further inspired by myths from the jungle, which she brought to life on canvas.
With hundreds of photos, two sketchbooks, a few carefully preserved butterfly wings and a hornet’s egg, Sophie returns to the Netherlands. Then follows a new journey, that of the translation of all the sights and sounds into art. It was immediately clear to Sophie that she wanted to make etchings. Sophie: “Only with the etching needle can I really reproduce the sharpness of, for example, the beautiful grain patterns.” In addition, she loves aquatint as a technique because it allows very subtle gradations of light and shadow to be applied. With her photos she makes mood boards and defines themes. Soon, she is painting intensely colored acrylic surfaces, which she will go over with oil paint. Some of her pigments she finds in plants themselves. The work that results from the journey takes on something of a fairytale that is simultaneously firmly rooted in the reality of nature.
She has brought them to life: the stories of the indigenous people, the culture and its fascination with nature; these form the guidelines for the works displayed in the exhibition.
Sophie Steengracht is a visual artist. Sophie studied graphic techniques at the Scuola Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, an educational course focused on engineering. In 2015 she graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Here, she was able to create a balance between her technical knowledge and the development of own artistic style.
You can find Sophie in her studio: a barn behind a farmhouse where cat named Bingo keeps her company. Surrounded by meadows and forest, she creates colorful paintings and murals. She loves to take photographs, and creates metal sculptures in her father’s welding shop.
Sophie draws her greatest inspiration from travel, literature and nature. Her travels through India, for example, had a great impact on her. The bright colors and various cultures, embedded in everyday life, intrigued Sophie. She later incorporated the pigments she took with her into her sketches and paintings. Traveling introduced Sophie to the stories that different peoples and places have to tell. Indigenous art, myths, folklore and magical realism in literature are the main foundations of her work.
Sophie is fascinated by nature. This, of course, also encompasses her concern about the impact humans are having on the future of the natural world. In our current geological era, the relationship between humans and their environment is visibly changing. Globalization and technological advancements are moving humans further away from natural resources.
Sophie is a socially engaged artist with a positive point of view. With her colorful paintings, she aims to show the power and beauty of nature and demonstrate that it is worth handling in a respectful and conscious manner. Sophie is affiliated with the collective The Earth Issue in London, a group of artists who put nature and the environment at the center of their works.
Having read about it, Sophie was already familiar with the Manu Biosphere, a pristine part of the Amazon. Vincent Mock, a former winner of the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation Grant, put her in touch with a primatologist at one of the few organizations allowed to show visitors around this reserve. It is an area of virtually unparalleled biodiversity, located on the slopes and along the banks of the Rio Alto Madre de Dios and the Rio Manu, east of Cusco. This place offered Sophie the possibility to explore new shapes, colors and textures. The culture of the indigenous people so in tune with nature, was another factor that spoke to Sophie. During her trip, she saw much of the rainforest and its biodiversity. These influences can be seen in her work. A plethora of colors, thin lines, organic shapes and dots can be found in her art. She was further inspired by myths from the jungle, which she brought to life on canvas.
With hundreds of photos, two sketchbooks, a few carefully preserved butterfly wings and a hornet’s egg, Sophie returns to the Netherlands. Then follows a new journey, that of the translation of all the sights and sounds into art. It was immediately clear to Sophie that she wanted to make etchings. Sophie: “Only with the etching needle can I really reproduce the sharpness of, for example, the beautiful grain patterns.” In addition, she loves aquatint as a technique because it allows very subtle gradations of light and shadow to be applied. With her photos she makes mood boards and defines themes. Soon, she is painting intensely colored acrylic surfaces, which she will go over with oil paint. Some of her pigments she finds in plants themselves. The work that results from the journey takes on something of a fairytale that is simultaneously firmly rooted in the reality of nature.
She has brought them to life: the stories of the indigenous people, the culture and its fascination with nature; these form the guidelines for the works displayed in the exhibition.
