We recently connected with Sophie Green and have shared our conversation below.

Sophie, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

So far, my Commodities collection has been one of the most meaningful projects for me. Every collection I put together has some kind of meaning – a message, but this one seems different. The idea for the collection came to me back in 2022, when I was in the middle of putting together my Impermanence collection and at the time, I thought it would be cool to have animals posing miserably on plinths, like they’re in a futuristic exhibit. I thought it could be a thought-provoking concept and make people think about how we commodify animals and nature for our benefit.

After procrastinating, talking myself out of the idea and doubting myself as a creative for the best part of a year, I finally started the collection. After completing the first piece, I went out to Tanzania for a couple of weeks, where I witnessed animals being crowded by jeeps, visibly stressed. I went home and started the second piece. After completing this, I was in Kenya filming for another project and I witnessed the same again; lions, cheetahs and even leopards being harassed by jeeps and tourists.

I then spent 3 months in Costa Rica, where I was volunteering in a wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release centre. It was so eye-opening to see animals being brought into the centre every day, injured, sick, on the brink of death. Almost every single one was the result of human-animal conflict or habitat disturbance.

Now, the Commodities collection has taken on a whole new meaning for me. It’s not just a ‘cool concept’, it’s become such a vital message that I think the world needs to hear. I want the collection and the forthcoming exhibitions to be eye-opening, evocative and poignant. Every piece I complete is for a reason now and it’s made the process so much more enjoyable for me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m an artist by trade, but I use my art to try and raise awareness for wider issues in the natural world. I primarily work in acrylic to create photorealistic depictions of animals, often with a message.

I started out working in the film & television industries, painting on the side for a bit of fun. I then became a primary (elementary) school teacher, where I had no more time to paint. In fact, it felt like all of the creativity was sucked out of my body. I was so tired and stressed and sick. Eventually, I decided it was worth trying to pursue being a full-time artist, feast or famine.

It was a slow road to being a full-time artist, particularly as I had responsibilities and bills to pay (not being a typical bright-eyed 21-year-old fresh from art school), but it was so worth taking the risk.

Now, I am an artist, conservationist and environmentalist, as well as a podcast host and producer!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Somewhere down the line, I think we often learn from society, our parents, or our peers, that being an artist is an unrealistic and difficult career path. For me, it felt so out of the realm of possibility, that I didn’t bother pursuing the career for many years. It’s certainly true that being a full-time artist is difficult to an extent. But being self-employed in general, or indeed a business-owner (which, if you’re an artist nowadays, you kind of have to be) is difficult. It certainly is easier to go and get a ‘normal’ job and receive a pay-check at the end of each month. But for me, it’s so much harder on my soul to be doing something I don’t want to do, especially if it’s making you stressed, sick and anxious.

Once I unlearnt all of the programming that being an artist is an uphill struggle, it’s hard to sell art, nobody has any money, there’s a cost-of-living crisis etc., I realised that if I focused my energy on creating and doing what I loved, other people grew to love my art too and sales started coming in. Now, I make a conscious effort to switch my brain off when I hear other artists moaning that they’re not selling anything, or they’re not getting any social media engagement, or the economy is terrible. These may all be totally true facts, but they don’t help you to create beautiful art that other people are going to love and want to buy!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My social media was definitely built slow and steady. When I first started my page, I was fairly late to the party and I knew I wasn’t going to build a huge following overnight, but I did enjoy having a fresh, blank page to make my own and curate posts that I liked and I hoped others would like too.

I also really wanted to create a community, particularly on Twitter, where there can be a lot of negativity. So I replied to almost all of my comments and messages and got to know my followers, even if there were only a hundred of them, I was grateful for every single one. I invested in a good camera, a new lens and spent some time learning how to edit videos properly (I actually enjoyed this part of the process, as I felt like it was an extension of creating the art itself).

Over time, I grew an audience who are so kind and supportive and engaged. My following isn’t as big as many creatives, but they’re truly the best bunch and I’m so grateful for them. I think if I had focused on the analytics, the stats and follower count etc., I’d probably lose sight of the fact that there are actually humans on the other side of these numbers and it would spiral into some kind of social media induced madness!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sophiegreenfineart.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/sophiegreenfineart
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/sophiegreenart

Image Credits
Sophie Green