Sophie Walraven

Art at the Scrapyard

In June 2011, I transformed a scrapyard into a one day exhibition of paintings on cars. Hundreds of rejected cars, months of painting in advance, one exhibition, one single day. 600 people came to the event, 32 works were sold, two pieces even went to the Amsterdam Museum.

Click on the pictures below for the full story:

 

New Car, New Painting

Since I couldn’t drive my old car after the bird was cut out, I got a new car. And again I painted it. My studio on the side of my car:

HEMA

In the winter of 2010-2011, the HEMA, a popular dutch department store, advertises very cheap products with the question ‘What can you buy for €.. these days’ (Wat koop je nog voor €..?) I have tried to answer this question. I don’t know if I got it right, I was only guessing. Unfortunately HEMA didn’t respond to my guesses.

For example, in the first picture, HEMA asks what you can still buy for €5,- and shows reading glasses. My thought was that if you can sell those for that price someone along the line must be losing, so I guessed; ‘Euh, Child Labour?’

In the second picture I thought the answer to €4,- tights could be maybe: ‘Modern slavery?’
The third Picture with the sandwich, advertises one ounce of roast beef so I figured it must have
something to do with: ‘Bio Industry?’

Indonesia & Malaysia

In the winter of 2009- 2010 I was in Indonesia and Malaysia for a couple of months. The first weeks I stayed with friends and painted in an extra room in their beautiful house. After two weeks I went to see the rest of Java. I took my canvas along, rolled up in a large socket that I carry with me. This way I could work everywhere.
After Indonesia I went to Malaysia, to Pulau Kecil, wich means ‘Small Island’. Indeed it was. The only thing that could be done there was diving, surfing and catamaran sailing. So those were the things I would do during the cooler morning. In the afternoon I painted in the shade of the little patio of my island house.

My first Painted Car

In 2008, I painted a large bird on my car. That was a pretty exciting experience. It felt almost like getting a tattoo. Not that I know what that would feel like, but that is anonther story. A lot of reactions came from the painting and many people found their way to my studio. I sold the bird while it was still my car. In 2010 I decided I had to separate them, the car had to go and the bird was coming off.
Now the car is at the scrapyard and the bird is in the garden of two lovely people who had fallen in love with the bird long before that.

Live Painting in Nightclubs

Realy? What? Well yeah, the winter of 2007/2008, I didn’t pack my paint and flipflops to go somewhere exotic, I took my gear to the nightclubs of Amsterdam. Pretty hot and exotic too. I painted live on stage, even in the famous Paradiso. Next to the DJ, on stage, dancing (can’t help myself) and panting. With a camera over my head that would film my doings ans project it on the big screen behind me. So the crowd was dancing and watching me paint and dance, while they could also see the painting becoming, on the big screen instead of the VJ. These are some of the recordings:

If you want to watch all the videos, go to my channel on YouTube.

Birds in the streets of Amsterdam

In November 2007, I snuck into the streets of Amsterdam to paste the big birds that I had been making in my studio. This time of year was not very well picked since it was raining a lot and VERY windy. My birds went flying instead of staying put ont their walls. This is the reason that I don’t have many pictures of them bij daylight. Most of them haven’t ever seen the sun. So there, you win some, you lose some.

Nola Hatterman Institute Paramaribo, Surinam.

As in many other years, I fled the cold wet and windy winters of Holland in 2007. I went to Paramaribo for two months. Again to work for myself and next to that, teach to provide for my stay.
I shared a giant studio with hundreds of church benches and other furniture that came from the oldest wooden church in south America. I had an altar as my easel and created new species on the sheet music that was lying around.
At the Nola Hatterman institute I worked as an art teacher, drawing and painting lessons; to model, landscape and concept. Also art history and style- and concept formation.

Horses in Amsterdam

The summer of 2006, after New Delhi, I went completely wild on the subject ‘Horses’. I had them lying around all over my studio. Large colorful running energetic superass horses.
But they belonged in the city. So there. In two weeks time I pasted up to a hundred horses all over my city. I turned Amsterdam into a super outdoor gallery, or maybe better, an arena. It reminded me a lot of the ancient Lascaux Caves.

Delhi, India

In 2006, I was in New Delhi, India. I stayed in the house of a silkscreen printer who also let me use an entire floor of his studio that he wasn’t using at the time. Every day I worked, like a maniac, and everynight I went out, New Delhi is completely amazing. I took serveral trips, went to Rajastan and stayed with the people of the desert, close to the Pakistan border. On my way there I visited Jodhpur, the famous beautiful blue city, and goreous Jaipur. And off course I went to see the Taj Mahal in Agra.
India gave me endless input, and the unlimited space and material to work with. The quality of the paper and the paint there is so good that it is illegal here in Europe. I have to go back there….

Levantine College of Art, Cyprus

In March of 2004 I went to Cyprus, the Turkish side of the islands to work and teach. An old abandoned catholic church was a beautiful and especially cool place to work. After 10 in the morning there was nothing like my private studio on the whole island.
Twice a week, the students of the Levantine College of Art came to my church-studio, I would rid all the easels of my work to let the students in on my ways of looking at form and figure.