It’s recently been our pleasure to talk to the lovely Sophie Kern. She’s 22 years old (for another few weeks). She’s an illustrator. She graduated from Brighton last summer, where she had “an amazing 3 years surrounded by lots of very talented people”. Now she’s living near London with her family, scrounging pennies until she can, in her own words “afford to move to the big smoke, and fulfill all my big smokey dreams”. We’re a fan of hers.

Art and Things: How did these pieces that we’re looking at come about?

Sophie Kern: Most of the images here are from a project called ‘Ilira’ which is an Inuit term for fear. The project is inspired by Inuit mythology and folklore. I found some amazing books in the library that contained these incredible folk tales passed down through generations of the alaskan Inuits. They were stories that helped explain to children the unpredicatabilty and brutality of nature. From what I read, it seems as though the Inuits were constantly living in fear. Their livelihood was completely dependant on nature, so they held the utmost respect for it. They believe in dualism, which is the notion that every object has a soul, sometimes multiple souls. So when hunting, all animals were killed in a respectful way, to appease their soul, as it would curse them in the afterlife if treated cruely. Likewise, they must make sure not to hunt too many animals, and only take what they needed from the land, or else Mother Nature would punish them for being greedy. I found the whole thing fascinating, and the folk tales were completely psychedelic, and gruesome, which was an excellent inspiration for me!

What’s been your biggest struggle as an artist to date?

Well, all throughout my art education at school I was encouraged to paint, and paint strictly from observation. Sometimes we were just copying other famous paintings! And even during my foundation course in London, tutors wanted me to produce these boring life-like portraits. Relying solely on just the skill of looking at something and copying it, was completely stifling my creativity. I got frustrated, and began investigating new artists and interesting ways of working, which is eventually what lead me to illustration. I felt like I was light years behind most of the students at Brighton, the standard was so high, and I had no confidence in my what I was doing at all! I hated having to show people my work, but that’s something you have to get over pretty quick if you’re going to be any sort of illustrator! So, I guess my biggest struggle was during these three years, trying to develop new ways of drawing, thinking, and expressing ideas, and actually liking them enough to want to show them to anyone else.

And your biggest triumph?

I think a lot of people assume that talent or skill is mostly something your born with, but I feel like I had to work really hard to get to where I am now. Drawing from my head, was something I found impossible initailly. I’d have all these visions of things to draw but as soon as I’d put a pen to paper, they escaped me, and I got ‘page fright’ (like stage fright, but the fear comes from the big white empty page!) At the moment drawing weird creatures and strange characters is something I really love doing, but I could never have done it without a lot of practice. So I think that’s my main achievement, learning how to visualise something, and then being able to put it down on paper. Doesn’t sound very grand when I put it like that, does it? How can I word it better…When I was

younger I thought it was impressive to draw a face and make it look like a face, I’m now more impressed when someone can draw a face and make it look like nothing you’ve ever seen before in your life! That’s the skill I’m trying to possess, and the triumph is getting a little closer to possessing it!

We, really, really love your blog. How does having a blog influence the way you work and the perceived relationship between yourself and the people that look at your work?

The first time I ever saw my work mentioned on a blog I was so shocked! It’s such a weird thing to think that someone I’ve never met knows my name and my work, and cares enough about it to mention it on their site! My blog is actually relatively new, I started it as an easy way to keep people updated on what was next in store for me and my work, as a few people had been asking me. It doesn’t influence the way I work, because I just shove stuff on it that’s been lying around my desk, or making me laugh. I don’t really think about who’s looking at it, I find it kind of impossible to imagine! The internet is excellent like that because people may well be judging your work or think you’re a moron, but you cannot see who it is or if they’re pulling a funny face.

If you were banned from illustrating (I’m sure nobody would stand for it) what would you do instead? (you’ve been given a magic pill to learn any skill)

Excellent question. There are lots of things. The magic pill makes this even trickier. Ok, well do I have to earn money from this skill? If not I’d just do some badass stuff like fly around, and breathe underwater, and travel into space on the back of a unicorn. But if I need to make a living, I’d probably learn to be..Oh, I’d love to learn a million languages, and go and translate weird ancient runes all round the world, and use my knowledge to solve mysteries. Cool mysteries, no murder ones. Mysteries like big foot and crop circles and ghosts and pyramids. I could translate hieroglyphics and stuff, and visit tribes like Bruce Parry. I don’t know what the term would be for this job, professional detective of foreign mysteries. THAT, would be pretty good. I’d like to spend all my time reading books really fast like superman and becoming the most knowledgeable person in the world about all sorts of weird stuff. I’d like to be an enigma….and perhaps have my own throne.

Last thing you watched that made you laugh out loud?

I watched my cat doing funny things with its lips while he was alseep. That made me laugh. He’s blind tho, shouldn’t laugh at disabled cats.

The most amazing place you’ve been?

The most amazing place….well, I couldn’t decide on the most amazing, my brain doesn’t have that part that creates hierarchies, top 10’s and stuff like that take me years to work out. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever decided on my top anything. Anyway, I recently went to a very special place called Eufala, it is in Alabama. I love Southern America. In this place Eufala, I bought bullets from a Wallmart, I noticed one could purchase a pink rifle, a ladies rifle, which I thought was nice. I met a man called Buck who sold me boiled peanuts, I drove through a few trailer parks and cotton fields. It was excellent. Another good place I’ve been to recently was the sky….in a plane, but the sky no less. You can take some real nice pictures out the windows of planes.

What are the materials you prefer to work with?

Hmm, it changes. I like using inks and dip pens, but at the moment I’ve got quite into those big serious marker pens that give you a headache when you sniff them. I still work in collage too. I have been collecting lots of old books for a while now, so I have quite a lot of nice imagery stored away for collages. When I’m stuck for things to draw, I quite often make a collage and draw from that image.

Who are you a huge fan of?

I really like Matt Leines, Richard Coleman, Jim Stoten, ShoboShobo (they make brilliant jumpers) and a man who calls himself King Trash. I love people who make really intense drawings with stupid amounts of stuff going on. I also really like Gabriela Fridriksdottir, the lady who does Bjork’s artwork. Very nice shapes and creatures with teeth. And Yokoland, awesome Norwegian duo.

What’re your main inspirations?

Things that I don’t understand. Religions and beliefs and mythology and mysticism. The books I collect. Music, and noisy streets, I don’t like the quiet… I can’t think if it’s quiet. David Attenborough’s soothing voice. Coconut water, the miracle cure. The people I’ve met all over the place. New York City, colours, shapes, and caffeine. Oh, and whiskey. Many great and terrible decisions have been made under its influence.

What’re you listening to?

At this very moment, I am listening to Department of Eagles. They’re very lovely, bits of the album remind me of the frog song in Rupert the Bear for some reason.

Read any good books recently?

Yes. One called ‘Explaining the Unexplained’…I shall give you a quote:

“It has been reported by one researcher, who shall remain anonymous, that plants ‘react’ to human emotion, and to the killing of other plants and small animals.”

FACT, you can’t beat a good fact from an anonymous researcher.

What’re you up to next?

I’m currently in the middle of this project with 11 other illustrators, we are all drawing fictional mountainscapes, inspired by the Italian Dolomites, which will then be exhibited in Farringdon, London, through April. I’ll post more info about it on my blog, if anyone would like to go and see it. Should be good, the other folks involved are all excellent…

Sophiekern.co.uk is well worth a visit, as is her blog.

Interview: PB