The rocks, 2025

As an artist, I response to the visual world around me. I’m Interested in the human figure and the Australian landscapes and often figures in the landscape. In early 2025, I visited the Dhilba Guuranda–Innes National Park (Yorke Peninsula) the traditional lands of the Narungga people 300 kilometres west of Adelaide. During summer the water hole at ‘Yorkes’ is enjoyed by locals and visitors. This painting shows people sharing and enjoying the water hole together At times I work on a kind of figuration that captures life and energy and attention to detail gives way to gestural, expressive brushwork. These figures are not representative of any person rather depictions of people in a generalised way. Vibrant colours and expressive brush work evoke glistening water, sunlit bodies and captures a sense of summer.

Sophie Hann is self-taught artist (apart from a semester at the New York Studio School on a scholarship) who lives and works on Kaurna Land, Adelaide. Hann received a Bachelor of Art from Flinders University.
While Hann is an independent artist, her accolades include the Dyason Bequest (AGNSW) and the Ruth Tuck Travelling Scholarship. She has been a finalist in major prizes such as the Lester Prize, the Portia Geach, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Brett Whitely Scholarship, Prospect Portrait Prize, the Heysen Prize for Landscape, the Fleurieu Art Prize, the John Fries Memorial Prize, the King’s School Art Prize, and the Lloyd Rees Prize. Hann has received multiple grants and residencies including the Nancy Fairfax Artist Residency and the BigCi residency.
Sophie Hann’s primary interest is in human ecology- the relationship between humans and their environments and environmental ethics, which explores the moral relationship between humans and the natural world, Animals, people and natural world features strongly in her work.