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NAS Retake: Sophie Cape

NAS Connect

NAS Retake: Sophie Cape

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As we’re all spending more time inside, we’ve been digging around in our Archive and Collection and rediscovering some brilliant work collected over the years from NAS Alumni. To share it with you, here’s the first in our new series called NAS Retake, celebrating and observing the student works of our alumni. This week, we’re kicking off with Sophie Cape, who graduated from NAS in 2010.

When Cape’s career as an elite athlete ended due to injury in 2008, her art making became the perfect outlet for her athletic energy and her love of being outdoors. Cape immersed herself physically and emotionally into the landscape. It was at the National Art School that she discovered and developed her unique visual language, making large-scale, visceral artworks composed predominately on the ground, outside and in seclusion.

The drawing Rests her weary head (pictured above) was made in her first year of art school after a trip to the bush. Cape used locally found materials: soil for pigments, burnt branches as charcoal, bones to draw with, and shrubs as brushes. These works became cathartic, psychological self-portraits fusing the artist’s raw energy and emotion, materiality and narrative. The work combines her lifelong love of poetry with the interchangeability of line, drawing and text – ongoing elements of her work. This also kick started her experiments with abstraction.

Sophie Cape’s paintings are both abstract and figurative, and are made through a dramatic, performative process, with great expression and physicality. Her works are often large in scale and psychological in the dialogue that they create about the human condition.

Romper Stomper is a portrait of the actor Dan Wyllie which took two years to make. The artist has commented on the sitter’s light-hearted, almost clownish characteristics compared to another darker side to his character. She says, ‘this contradiction is what life is about; that beauty does not exist without horror and that one cannot be truly appreciated without the other’. This work won the Portia Geach Memorial Award for portraiture in 2014.

Self-portrait (2008) was from the artist’s second year of study and was her first attempt at portraiture and painting with oils. The intensity of the gaze and the formal composition from forehead to chin clearly relates to her large-scale portrait of Dan Wyllie painted six years later.

Want to find out more?

Keep your eyes peeled on our page as we feature new works and artists straight from the NAS Archive and Collection. Follow the hashtag on Instagram to stay up-to-date with our latest posts.

Images (top to bottom): Sophie Cape, Rests her weary head, 2008, charcoal and soil pigment on paper, 55 x 75 cm, National Art School Collection, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the artist, 2018. Image courtesy and © the artist; Sophie Cape, Romper Stomper (Dan Wyllie), 2014, bitumen, acrylic, oil, soil, charcoal and ink on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, National Art School Collection, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the artist, 2018. Image courtesy and © the artist; Sophie Cape, Self Portrait, 2008, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm, National Art School Collection, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the artist, 2018. Image courtesy and © the artist

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Art Club is our high school student program for 15-17 year olds, designed to enhance and extend students’ technical, conceptual, and intellectual skills, through intensive practical study in the disciplines offered at NAS as well as engaging in an experience of our studios and campus, under the expert direction of experienced artists.

Set your child on a creative path with Art Club.

Learn more at the link in bio.

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Apr 15

Open
Art Club is our high school student program for 15-17 year olds, designed to enhance and extend students’ technical, conceptual, and intellectual skills, through intensive practical study in the disciplines offered at NAS as well as engaging in an experience of our studios and campus, under the expert direction of experienced artists. Set your child on a creative path with Art Club. Learn more at the link in bio.

Thank you to everyone who attended the opening night of the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize and congratulations again to the prize winner NAS alumna Rosemary Lee.

The 24th Dobell Drawing Prize is now open until Saturday 21 June 2025
11am – 5pm Monday to Saturday
NAS Gallery
Free admission, all welcome

Learn more about the exhibition at the link in bio.

View

Apr 11

Open
Thank you to everyone who attended the opening night of the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize and congratulations again to the prize winner NAS alumna Rosemary Lee. The 24th Dobell Drawing Prize is now open until Saturday 21 June 2025 11am – 5pm Monday to Saturday NAS Gallery Free admission, all welcome Learn more about the exhibition at the link in bio.

We are delighted to announce NAS alumna Rosemary Lee as the winner of the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize, Australia’s leading prize for drawing, worth $30,000.

Selected from 56 nationwide finalists, and 965 entries, Rosemary’s work will become part of the National Art School’s significant collection, built over the past 120 years. Rosemary, in her winning work 24-1 (2024), observes tonal and compositional profundity in everyday life.

The judging panel comprising acclaimed First Nations artist Vernon Ah Kee, Paula Latos-Valier AM, Trustee and Art Director of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, and Dr Yolunda Hickman, Head of Postgraduate Studies, National Art School, commented of Rosemary’s work: “The decision to award the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize to Rosemary Lee for the work ‘24-1’ was unanimous. We were most impressed by the level of visual intensity the artist has achieved in this work both through its vibrant colour and in the extraordinary detail of the composition. The artwork’s exploration of the urban landscape and gentrification of the Sydney suburbs of Ashfield and Summer Hill, has produced an image capturing a broader sense of transience and the omnipresence of construction sites in our cities today. It questions the cultural and historical value of place, through the lens of the artist’s personal connection.”

See Lee’s work alongside the work of the other finalists in the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize, 11 April – 21 June 2025, NAS Gallery
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Left to right: NAS Director and CEO, Dr Kristen Sharp with artist Rosemary Lee, featuring winning artwork 24–1, 2024, pencil on paper, image courtesy the artist and National Art School Gallery © the artist, photograph: Peter Morgan

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Apr 10

Open
We are delighted to announce NAS alumna Rosemary Lee as the winner of the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize, Australia’s leading prize for drawing, worth $30,000. Selected from 56 nationwide finalists, and 965 entries, Rosemary’s work will become part of the National Art School’s significant collection, built over the past 120 years. Rosemary, in her winning work 24-1 (2024), observes tonal and compositional profundity in everyday life. The judging panel comprising acclaimed First Nations artist Vernon Ah Kee, Paula Latos-Valier AM, Trustee and Art Director of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, and Dr Yolunda Hickman, Head of Postgraduate Studies, National Art School, commented of Rosemary’s work: “The decision to award the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize to Rosemary Lee for the work ‘24-1’ was unanimous. We were most impressed by the level of visual intensity the artist has achieved in this work both through its vibrant colour and in the extraordinary detail of the composition. The artwork’s exploration of the urban landscape and gentrification of the Sydney suburbs of Ashfield and Summer Hill, has produced an image capturing a broader sense of transience and the omnipresence of construction sites in our cities today. It questions the cultural and historical value of place, through the lens of the artist’s personal connection.” See Lee’s work alongside the work of the other finalists in the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize, 11 April – 21 June 2025, NAS Gallery — Left to right: NAS Director and CEO, Dr Kristen Sharp with artist Rosemary Lee, featuring winning artwork 24–1, 2024, pencil on paper, image courtesy the artist and National Art School Gallery © the artist, photograph: Peter Morgan

Introducing the National Art School Short Courses Program from July–December 2025

Whether you’re a beginner, rediscovering a past passion, refining your skills, or considering our Fine Arts degree, the short courses offer a stimulating and rewarding experience for all levels.

Our 2025 program begins in July with Winter School, followed by Term Three, Spring Weekend Workshops in September, and Term Four in October.

Learn more and enrol at the link in bio.

View

Apr 10

Open
Introducing the National Art School Short Courses Program from July–December 2025 Whether you’re a beginner, rediscovering a past passion, refining your skills, or considering our Fine Arts degree, the short courses offer a stimulating and rewarding experience for all levels. Our 2025 program begins in July with Winter School, followed by Term Three, Spring Weekend Workshops in September, and Term Four in October. Learn more and enrol at the link in bio.

Making Sound is a performance event featuring four artists who make devices that make sound, including Gary Warner, Pia van Gelder, Ben Denham and Sean O’Connell, presented following Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025, Saturday 12 April 5-6pm.

Gary Warner creates an improvised soundfield with his ‘aleatoric ensemble’ autonomous sound machines, a collection of modified turntables that spin ad-hoc bric-a-brac assemblages.

Pia van Gelder (pictured) amplifies an electronic circuit as it is built in real-time. Under the moniker of “PvG sans PCB,” in these performances, van Gelder works on a breadboard with electronic components and additional found objects to demonstrate the electronic variabilities produced in the material world.

Ben Denham and Sean O’Connell perform together with handmade synthesizer systems that sense and sonify barometric pressure and the flow of electrons through matter.

Purchase your tickets to the symposium at the link in bio.
—
Pia van Gelder, `sans PCB`, 2021, performance, Collings Creative, image courtesy and © the artist

View

Apr 6

Open
Making Sound is a performance event featuring four artists who make devices that make sound, including Gary Warner, Pia van Gelder, Ben Denham and Sean O’Connell, presented following Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025, Saturday 12 April 5-6pm. Gary Warner creates an improvised soundfield with his ‘aleatoric ensemble’ autonomous sound machines, a collection of modified turntables that spin ad-hoc bric-a-brac assemblages. Pia van Gelder (pictured) amplifies an electronic circuit as it is built in real-time. Under the moniker of “PvG sans PCB,” in these performances, van Gelder works on a breadboard with electronic components and additional found objects to demonstrate the electronic variabilities produced in the material world. Ben Denham and Sean O’Connell perform together with handmade synthesizer systems that sense and sonify barometric pressure and the flow of electrons through matter. Purchase your tickets to the symposium at the link in bio. — Pia van Gelder, 'sans PCB', 2021, performance, Collings Creative, image courtesy and © the artist
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