Sophie Ploeg

I was born and raised in The Netherlands and after living in the UK for quite a few years, I still cannot live without a regular dose of Gouda cheese. However, I am here in England to stay and busy raising two little boys with the help of lots of finger paint and jumbo crayons. I too loved painting and drawing as a child, and drew figures increasingly over the years. I was accepted in art college at 17 and studied Theatre Design. Unfortunately I missed some intellectual stimuli and signed up for university in Amsterdam to study art history. I soaked up the rich history of art with pleasure and stayed a bookworm for many years to come. I was delighted to get the opportunity to study for my Ph.D, which I finished in 2006.

In my paintings one can sometimes find traces of my years studying historic English architecture. A few years before ending my university studies I found the joy of painting again. And I could not stop. My children were born and I could not help but express their loveliness in paint. Soon I was painting children’s portraits on commission. My work has now developed into warm and atmospheric paintings portraying children and adults in everyday scenes.

Earth colours, children’s faces, and classical architecture are some of the things in which I find beauty, again and again. In everyday life it is so easy to pass by the most beautiful things without stopping to notice. We know it is there but find little time to see the timeless beauty in the faces of our children, the stillness in an everyday street scene, and the intriguing faces of our elders. I isolate these faces and these scenes in my art; I steal a moment in time and make it still in order to portray its beauty for all to see. The classic and rich colours of the earth, such as ochres, reds and browns provide a warm mood and with some notes to classical art or architecture a sense of timeless classical beauty.

Colour is an important part of my work and I have learned how it works in using pastel. Pastel is so direct and so vibrant it is a joy to use for any colour lover. Oil paint gives me the opportunity to create colour with a timeless elegant luminosity that enhances the beauty I am trying to encapsulate.

I work from photographs so I can ‘steal’ a moment out of real life and subsequently work into as much detail as I like. Figures and faces are picked from the street, the people I know, my imagination or a combination of all. I try to enhance the beauty I initially found in the scene by changing colours, lighting and props if necessary.

(VAT not applicable, all prices include frame)