We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sophia Hanna a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sophia, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I was interested in art early on, but by 10 years old I expressed that I was seriously into it. I‘ve always had incredibly supportive parents, so they started getting me into local art classes around the Springs. We also took advantage of any opportunity that came along, like technically my first art show was at age 11 in a little store in Old Colorado City. From there, I kept taking local classes and grew up around professional creatives in my city, like painters, poets, and musicians. Around 13-14, I aged out of the school where I was taking classes, and got into adult ones. That’s when I started to build a really strong drawing foundation and a wide variety of skills. In high school I also got very involved in technical theater, which pushed me in different ways. Between the absurd amount of classes I was taking, theater, doing group shows, and what I taught myself, I kept rapidly improving.

Most of the essential skills I picked up had to do with fully thinking through and creating shows. I started having solo shows at 17, and now I’m working on my fifth at 22. I have friends who went to college for art and didn’t have their first solo show until they graduated. So that experience really set me up early on.

As far as actual art making, my most essential skills are my drawing foundations. Any new medium that I tackle these days feels doable because I thoroughly understand basic art principles like value, shape, form, line, texture, color, perspective, etc (which are introduced in drawing).

Part of what helped me lock those in recently was teaching! If you can teach it you have to understand it.

As far as my biggest obstacle, it was definitely my poor mental health. I was hiding some intense struggles throughout high school especially, and went through long periods of not creating. I also deal with really crazy self doubt because my brain so easily descends into negative thought spirals. Pushing through that is hard enough when you add things like covid-19 on top of it. Now, I try to incorporate that instead of letting it shut me down, by making art about my mental health.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Sophia Hanna, I’m 22, and I’m a professional artist and local art instructor.

I’ve grown up immersed in the arts community of Colorado Springs. My first pieces debuted in the SPQR and Modbo Small Works show when I was only eleven. I’ve sold numerous works and commissions since, diving wholeheartedly into oil painting in 2017. In my two first solo oil shows at Colorado Coffee Merchants(2017) and SPQR(2018), I began to explore my experience with identity and mental illness via figurative work focusing on symbolism. In 2020 and 2022, I was honored to participate in the yearly “Gratitude” show at the Kreuser Gallery. In 2021, the fine dining restaurant Ephemera hosted an immersive solo oil show, where I debuted a new direction in my art.

I create abstract figurative oil paintings on custom wooden panels, and accompanying installations, that lean toward magical realism. As far as their message, I make art about the universally human journey of learning to live in our own skins. By facing myself in paint over and over, I encourage my audience to see themselves in each piece, as I explore the relationship with my own body, healing, forgiveness, pain, compassion, fear, and mental illness. The goal of each piece is to share my own vulnerable experience, hoping that it encourages my audience to do the same.

Now, I’m working out of an art studio at the Cottonwood Center for the Arts, preparing for a solo exhibition at the Kreuser Art Gallery for March 2023, where I focus on body image and body dysmorphia. I also teach all ages and mediums locally through the Bemis School of Art. While I prepare for my show, in addition to teaching, I participate in markets, enter group shows, lead workshops, sell merchandise, take commissions, participate in fundraisers, do live paintings as events, and more!

What do you find most rewarding about being creative?

The most rewarding part of putting my work out there is also the scariest part, which is how personal it is. I know every artist is putting a little piece of themselves into every painting, but I take it a step further. I use myself as the subject in nude art discussing body image and mental health overall. It’s incredibly vulnerable work, and I’m often actively in the trenches dealing with these struggles in real time. The rewarding aspect of it is that I feel seen and understood and always less alone by putting it out there. Communication is also a struggle for me, so it feels like this is a deeper look into my brain that people wouldn’t get otherwise.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Around three years ago in 2020, in the trenches of covid-19 and a nasty breakup, I began to explore new subject matter in my art. As result of growing up in my local arts community, I had felt intensely weird about switching gears from cute animal portraits to more serious matters. I was also scared to put myself out there and intertwine myself so much and so blatantly with the art.

In 2021 though, I got a show that changed all of that self doubt upside down. The curator was another artist, Jasmine Dillavou, doing her best to lift up creatives and give opportunities not found elsewhere. In my typical fashion, during our first meeting, I asked her what kind of show she wanted from me. She told me something that sunk in for the first time. “Do whatever the f*ck you want, and I’ll put it on the wall Sophia”. I really understood, for the first time, that people just want me to do what I want to do. I stopped caving to “what the audience will like” or “what will sell” with that show, and my art has shifted enormously in skill, creativity, and popularity since.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sophiazhanna.com
• Instagram: @sophiahannart
• Other: Tiktok: @sophiahannart

Image Credits:
Tyler Milne
Epoch Moment Photography