Collaboration
An Interview with Sophie Smallhorn
Sophie Smallhorn is a London-based artist and consultant with a background in furniture design and making. Her design-led practice joyfully explores the relationships between color, volume and proportion through the mediums of sculpture, installation and printmaking.
In 2018, Designtex approached Sophie to collaborate on a textile design, new territory for the artist, who was drawn to the challenge of working with a consideration for repeating pattern, scale and application. The result of this collaboration, Ribbon, draws upon Sophie’s distinctive approach to color and composition to create a dynamic visual experience.
Where do you call home?
I have lived and worked in London for the past 30 years.
How would you describe your creative practice?
The mainstay of my work falls into a fine art category, however my training and background is in design. Because of this, my work remains informed by a design led way of thinking where I impose a ‘brief’, or a limitation in order to launch an idea, or a palette. In stripping back the possibilities, I can find a clarity and momentum. My practice spans many areas; a lot of speculative studio work, generating new pieces and ideas. And by contrast, I work on larger, more collaborative projects with architects or designers, much like the ‘Ribbon’ project with Designtex.
What do you keep circling back to and exploring in your work?
I am always curious about the space created between shapes when composing a piece of work, or a print. The oddness of a void, or the way in which a composition of shapes can relate to the edges of a piece of paper.
What process, materials, techniques do you use to create your artwork?
I work through ideas with collage, using printed color scraps which I collect from past projects. And I make cardboard models when thinking about sculptural pieces. I like to work with my hands, using paint in order to see the true saturation of a color. And I work as little as possible on a computer.
What studio item can you not live without?
The radio. And a set of Color-aid swatches.
What is your earliest memory of making something?
Building houses out of Lego from as early as I can remember.
One artwork or song you cannot get out of your head?
The work of Natalie du Pasquier is never far from my head, and I often return to her for inspiration.
What are some small pleasures you have been including in your life?
Swimming in the lido on Hampstead Heath. And growing a good crop of tomatoes in the summer.
How can our clients see and learn more about your work?
Sophie Smallhorn – Works was published this year. It is a monograph which documents projects and pieces over the last 25 years.
