Sophie Perkins
Degree: BA Fine Art
University: Falmouth University
Graduation Year: 2020
New Blood Art Commentary
Sophie Perkins’ paintings operate according to the same principles as landscape itself, enacting the land. Surfaces stained and soaked in natural pigment organise through gravity, accumulation, erosion and pause, leaving traces, deposits and residues that feel closer to geology than gesture.
Artist Statement
The contemplative and dynamic energy of the work oscillates between chance, control and careful restraint. Membranes of flooded pools of pigment intertwine nature and the ‘nature of being’. Human nature is an active process. We are constantly becoming, finding meaning in the world through experience.
Working with watered-down acrylic mediums and natural pigments, I use a pouring and soak-stain technique that has its own ‘living’ quality. The use of natural pigments leaves traces of the physical world, seeping, bleeding and ingraining deep into the weave of the cotton duck.
The raw canvas has an important role. The neutral ground creates ‘breathing spaces’, accentuating a contemplative space of balance, liminality and changing states. By eliminating non-essential forms and features, the exposed compositions hold the essence of form, materiality and the alchemy of paint.
Working on large-scale canvases requires an immersive approach using bodily gestures. Rather than working from the wrist and brush, I catch and drag the paint with my hands and arms, carrying the landscape in my arms, in the words of Helen Frankenthaler.