Sophie Edell
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Sophie Edell’s paintings give us a peek into the practice of painting in Quebec townships by collecting rooms and landscapes as symbols of a quieter life. Edell chats with us about transitioning from urban to rural, developing a personal style, and the intersection of illustration and painting.
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Sarah Piché, yolk visual arts editor: Your paintings of domestic spaces remind me of the absence, and inadvertent presence, of the human figure. With ruffled sheets, washed mugs, uneaten food, the body is present in the traces it has left. And so I wanted to ask you what has brought you to these spaces as subject matter? Why interiors and why the found still lifes?
Sophie Edell: I started painting these subjects during the pandemic, while I was living in a very small house in the country. A lot of my time was spent alone in and around this space, and I began to notice the way we leave an imprint on our surroundings in unique ways. Levels of messiness, aesthetic choices, evidence of what we've consumed... these are clues that tell a story about us as individuals.
SP: In regards to landscape painting, and particularly the tradition of painting en plein-air, how do you see your work fitting in the genre?
SE: Although I have always liked landscape paintings and found them to be beautiful, it wasn't until I began to paint them myself that I understood the personal relationship the artist has to the painted subject.
I work en plein-air sometimes, but mostly I work from images that I take while I'm out, usually of places that I frequent often.
Regardless of my approach, I feel a connection to the subject simply from having experienced that ephemeral moment I'm trying to capture. That experience and connection feel like the most important factors in landscape painting, and therefore the links between my work and landscape painting in general.
SP: Moving from Montreal to the townships in 2020 seems to have influenced your style quite a bit. In doing so you have managed to create a prolific body of work within the past two years. How has the new environment impacted your practice, style, and approach to artmaking?
SE: I'd worked in the service industry for many years before my move to the Townships. I moved right as the pandemic started, and therefore I was forced out of that type of work for an unspecified amount of time.
This was my first time living outside of the city, and after a few months of exploration and unemployment I began painting again. I'd avoided painting for years due to lack of inspiration and drive.
My new environment inspired me to paint anything that I found to be beautiful, which helped me to reject the art school notion that your work needs to be new, unique, and deeply conceptual to be of any interest.
This made painting so much more fun! Since then I've been working in a style and frequency that is completely new for me.
SP: I imagine these series of paintings coalescing into a sort of self-portrait as you paint the spaces you’ve moved through, do you think of your work through an autobiographical lens?
SE: Definitely! These works have come to be a sort of visual diary, documenting my life over the past two years. Although they feel personal to me, I think they depict pretty relatable scenes and that's why they resonate with people globally.
SP: As someone who also works within illustration, how do you see the two practices influencing each other?
SE: Illustrations don't often focus on true realism, and neither do my paintings. Even though I'm painting recognizable subjects, they are always a little off in terms of colour and perspective.
I don't focus on perfection, and I try to have fun with it, so I think this is where my illustrations and paintings intersect. I'm not sure if one influences the other or if it is that they are both branches of the same tree.
SP: Is there any advice you would like to share with artists?
SE: My advice would be to focus on creating what you enjoy making, and to try as much as possible to create it for yourself first and foremost. Have fun! I think people recognize this when they see a piece made in this way, without even realizing it.
Another piece of advice I would offer is to try and give yourself as many opportunities to focus solely on your art as you can. I know first hand that it's hard to do this when you aren't generating income from your work, and that forces us to get secondary jobs in order to live.
Keep an eye on grants, and other opportunities that give you the chance to develop your work without other distractions
Sophie Edell is a visual artist based in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec. She grew up in Toronto and began creating art from a young age, which led to her enrolment at Concordia University in Montreal in 2007 where she received her bachelor of Fine Arts in 2011. Edell has explored many avenues in the time since graduation, from drawing and painting, to textiles and design. She returned with focus to her love of painting in the summer of 2020 after a move from the city of Montreal to the more rural setting of the Townships. Her work can be found on her website, www.sophieedell.com, or Instagram, @dittoecho.
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