MUNTHE ART MONDAY: 
SOPHIE GLOVER

Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.

I am an artist making paintings, drawings and jewellery from my studio in South-East London.

My oil paintings, which form the central part of my practice, use symbolic objects, often resting in the domestic setting of the kitchen to explore themes of rest, personal ritual and the occult. In my paintings, I build small tableaus from the ephemera that gathers on a kitchen table over time: flowers arriving and fading, fruit, notes, keys, glasses, cigarettes and phones glowing softly in the corner. Images and icons reappear from painting to painting - women sleeping, anaemic fruit and flowers, insects, butter blocks and a small self-portrait by my grandmother.

Making paintings is how I keep a diary. The kitchen table means two things to me - it is a celebration of the preparation of food; acting as a stage set which the rhythms of our lives wash over, brush past and settle at. But it is also somewhere that I can place imaginary objects as symbolic placeholders. Through these placeholders I aim to tell the story of my world as it changes.

Sophie is wearing our TEZZA T-SHIRT and KIARAN CASHMERE knit.

Can you name some other female (artists) that inspires you and explain why they do so?

The woman I have taken most inspiration from is Celia Paul. I read her book, Self Portrait, about seven years ago when I moved from drawing to oil painting and it’s what gave me the confidence to paint. She is unapologetic about being a painter first, before all else - after living in the shadow of her former partner Freud she held a self belief in her unwavering need to paint that I have always found steadying. She spoke about coming to the canvas on good days and bad and not waiting to paint. I’ve heard Chatal Joffe and Tracey Emin speak with similar steadfastness about the need to paint, whatever the weather and the importance of it above everything else.

Sophie is wearing our KIARAN CASHMERE knit and NOMI SKIRT.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?

I think the expectation to reveal enough of yourself through your work to entertain the viewer - but not so much that the work doesn’t sell - very hard. I dream of the day I am able to make work as a female artist that speaks of our collective experience without the question of whether it has value or not.

Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?

So far, I’m not sure being a woman has particularly affected my career as a painter - however, if I have a family, I’m sure that will be a very different story. I started as an illustrator and remember a bumpy road at the beginning as a young woman being spoken over in briefing meetings by men, misadvised by older male clients to take payment in ways that amounted to very little, laughed at when I presented contracts (by male clients), having people presume ownership over my style (again, male clients) - but that has really eased over the years. Perhaps I became tougher or perhaps I look older - I’m not sure!

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?

I think the expectation to reveal enough of yourself through your work to entertain the viewer - but not so much that the work doesn’t sell - very hard. I dream of the day I am able to make work as a female artist that speaks of our collective experience without the question of whether it has value or not.