Sophie Derrick's work focuses on portraiture, but with the use of both painting and photography. This genre is skewed and manipulated and the transformative properties of paint are pushed to the limit. She photographs the act of painting onto her own skin and then paints on top of the photographs, creating a layering of image of paint and painted image, blurring the boundaries between the two. The 'self' is lost, buried beneath the paint, and the notion of portraiture is questioned. The body becomes both object and subject within Sophie Derrick's work.
There is a constant shift between dualities: painting and photography, absence and presence, and reality and fiction. The painting, photographic, and layering techniques, and bold, vibrant colors used within the work become obstacles to reality, distorting and creating absurd and abstracted portraits. Sophie Derrick's work incorporates the two mediums of painting and photography. She has a great interest in the materiality and substance of paint, and executes this interest through photography, creating a juxtaposition of the two mediums.
Instagram @sophiederrickart
