NAS Retake: Sophie Cape

NAS Retake: Sophie Cape

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

#Follow us on Instagram
Final weeks to visit The Neighbour at the Gate, closing Saturday 18 October. 

Across various mediums and perspectives, The Neighbour at the Gate charts the entangled legacies of exclusion and resilience, drawing vital parallels between the past and present, memory and nationhood.

Learn more about the exhibition and plan your visit at the link in bio. 

Please note: the gallery is closed for Labour Day Monday 6 October
Enjoy 20% off a Summer School Short Course with code FLASHSALE20

Don’t miss this exclusive 20% off flash sale on the National Art School Summer School Short Courses (link in bio). Flash Sale starts right now and ends midnight Monday 6 October.*

*Offer begins midday Friday 3 October and ends midnight Monday 6 October. Terms and conditions apply.
We are pleased to share the exciting news that we are introducing a new BFA (Hons) degree at the National Art School in 2026.

The Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) is an intensive one-year program designed for graduates of the BFA who are ready to deepen their studio practice and expand their academic and professional capabilities. This course is ideal for emerging artists who want to refine their practice, build industry connections, and prepare for postgraduate study or professional opportunities in the creative sector.

New scholarships will be available to students entering the BFA (Hons), with further details to be shared later this year. For more information and key dates, visit futurestudents.nas.edu.au (link in bio).
Join us for free 18+ concert 'Afterglow' – The Neighbour at the Gate exhibition closing party.

Headlined by Miss Kaninna, the event features performances by HYLANDER, Rocky Stallone, BRINA, Kuya Hennessy, and DJ Court Jester. RSVP today as tickets are going fast!

Afterglow 
Thursday 16 October 
Doors: 4.30pm
Concert starts: 7.00pm
Cell Block Theatre, National Art School

Please note: if the Cell Block reaches capacity, you’re welcome to enjoy the concert from the courtyard until space opens up inside. Food trucks and pop up bar.

FREE ADMISSION, RSVP is essential due to limited capacity (link in bio)
Congratulations to NAS Short Courses Painting Lecturer Michelle Hiscock (@michellelouisemariehiscock) for winning the 2025 Portia Geach Memorial Award with her work, 'The Weather Watcher after Zurbarán'. 

The Portia Geach Memorial Award is the pre-eminent portraiture prize for women in Australia, established by Florence Kate Geach in memory of her sister in 1965. 

An exhibition of all finalists’ works is open for public viewing at the S.H. Ervin Gallery (@shervingallery) in The Rocks, Sydney, from Friday 19 September until Sunday 2 November.

Visit shop.nas.edu.au (link in bio) to book now for Term 4 Short Courses. Summer School Short Courses in January 2026 will open for booking from Friday 3 October. 

---
Michelle Hiscock, 'The Weather Watcher after Zurbarán', 2025, oil on linen, 50 x 40 cm, courtesy of the artist and the S.H. Ervin Gallery (The Rocks, Sydney)
Loading...