ARTEXPRESS Interviews 2020 - Sophie Tilling 
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SOPHIE TILLING: Hi, my name is Sophie Tilling. And I studied visual arts at Woolooware High School in New South Wales. 
I remember my original ideas sparked from a photograph I found when I was researching what I should do for my major work. And it was basically a photographer had taken photos of the same face but different angles and different zoom-- zoom in, zoom out, different profiles, and basically put it in a collage altogether. 
So I started to play around, draw a few things, took some photos of family members. And I remember sitting on my bedroom floor as soon as the idea sparked. And I covered the whole floor with photos of all my family members, all different angles, all different zooms, different facial features. 
And I just played in different sizes. And I just placed them. So many times, took me hours. And I finally got it. 
And then I ended up making a mock head of what my final work would look like because I decided that I didn't want it flat. It was going to be drawings, in big charcoal drawings. I didn't want them to be flat altogether. I wanted it to stand out from one another. 
And I had to make a small one. My teacher convinced me that that's the way you had to do it. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm fine. I'll just go to Bunnings, buy all the wood to draw it on and everything. 
She was like, no, you need to sit down and visually see what you need to make. And she was 100% right. Because when I went to build this out of wood and everything, it was so difficult as it was. 
And I just remember sitting in my garage with my dad. We'd been to Bunnings, bought everything. And it took us so many times to get it right because it was so big and it was heavy. And it would fold this way and fold that way. 
And we had to realise, we needed to put a stand behind it and do all this stuff and make a pole there and a pole out that way to have it exactly how I wanted it. And the only way I got through that was because my teacher told me I had to make a maquette of it. 
My body of work was so large. I had to keep some pieces of it at school and then other pieces at home. I had no way of transporting it to and from school every day. So I would keep some at school, my teacher would check them. Then I would swap them. 
And I remember one morning I walked downstairs to do a little bit on my artwork. And it had basically peeled off, the paper on the front had peeled off the board and bubbled everywhere. And my drawing was ruined. And I had to throw the whole piece out and start again. And I was devastated. It was so upsetting. 
But then I started again and kept going on. After I'd thrown out my artwork, I went to school and I told my teacher. We were both so devastated. But she supported me and suggested changing types of paper. 
I didn't even realise this, but all different types of art paper, different thicknesses, different densities, and everything. And we ended up choosing a thinner paper to stick to the board. And it was perfect. 
The inspiration for my body of work-- I looked at a few artists. But William Kentridge seems to come to mind. His sketchy technique was quite interesting, as compared to my work, which was more realistic. 
Another artist, Brno Del Zou had a really interesting process where he laid his images that he'd taken. And I found that helpful when creating my design process for my body of work. 
Visual arts has essentially changed my life and how I view things. I think doing so well in my major work has inspired me to go into university and study design, which has changed my career path. It's giving me the opportunity to expand and know more about the art world and what it's all about. 
My advice for future year 12 art students is try and come up with an idea as early as you can. Start generating thoughts and ideas for your process early. Talk to your art teacher. She or he will definitely know what your strengths and weaknesses are and give you lots of tips. 
And just have faith in yourself and make sure you just keep moving and don't be scared to try new things. Explore different ideas and concepts in your art book. That really helped me a lot. Taking lots of photos, try and charcoal, painting, all different things to figure out what your best art is definitely the way to go. 
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