In Conversation x Sophie Tea
Words by: Evie Summers
Sophie Tea is an artist who doesn't simply follow the well-trodden path; university was never the backbone of her practice. She is instead spurred on by a deep want to connect. Social media was both her place of learning and personal gallery, finding an artist's home completely separate from the preset conventions of the art world. Her career’s on-set was marked by “feeling like an outsider [...]. I didn’t go to art school or have any formal training, so social media became my gallery. That taught me that art doesn’t have to live in traditional spaces to be meaningful. I want art to feel accessible, shared and lived with, not just observed from a distance.”
As a self-taught artist, she drew on creativity and intuition to process and navigate the emotional transition from late teen years to early adulthood. her audience privy to every development and step along her journey of discovery as both an artist and a woman.
Her recent collection of work, which Original Magazine was privileged to see at her open studio, is a departure from her traditionally more abstract style and is much more apparent in its depiction of the female form. This project has affected Sophie immensely and could also affect her community.
Moving through the building acted as an interesting precursor to seeing the studio. We entered at street level and were immediately greeted by a lovely member of Sophie's team, I rather embarrassingly slightly uncomposed after furiously lime-biking to make it on time. We ascended the multiple stairs, growing increasingly fearful that we were somehow going the wrong way. After we finally reach the top of a 3rd dark flight, we hear music emanating from a door on our left. Instantly on entering, your vision was flooded with such a vivid scene that you couldn't help but draw inside, where paintings lined the walls of the studio. Scanning the room, the vibrancy and life of each piece pulled your eye from wall to wall, and back again, as I indulged in the details of each figure. So busy with colour, my eyes began to feel as if they vibrated with the excitement of taking it all in. That feeling of sensory overload that sends your mind alite with questions is a beautifully rare feeling.
Sophie's Teas' new collection is truly a triumph, and the more I sit with each piece, the more convinced I am. Her new body of work consists exclusively of depictions of the female body in a myriad of colours, poses, and contexts. I came to find that many of the work's subjects were, in fact, Sophie herself, and they represented a deep and tumultuous journey of self. Like many young women, Sophie dealt early on with body image and self-esteem issues. Her work is a diary of fashion, an allegory for the complexity of sordid self-love journeys.
As she has matured, this relationship to her own body and identity has shifted to a much healthier and resolved place, in no small part due to her exploration of art. Using herself as both muse and artist, she lays bare an inner tension that plagues us all. When she began this collection, something just clicked. “Painting the female form feels endlessly inspiring to me because every single body tells a story. The moment I started painting nudes, I realised I’d found my purpose.” This want to candidly represent the female frame extends far beyond her own front door. Sophie wants this collection to reveal the revelation of self-love and reverence to as many women as possible. “For years, I had quite a complicated relationship with my own body and how I saw myself, and I never want another woman to feel that same heaviness if I can help it. I always say that I’m all about making women feel just a tiny bit nicer about themselves.”
Through a project called Send Nudes Live, Sophie asked her followers to contribute their own nude selfies to be painted, and incredibly many did.
This is probably something that would shock many of us. Nudes are such a personal thing, and moreover, there is so much shame attached that it is hard for many of us to imagine a world in which they would be freely and lovingly shared with what is, essentially, a stranger. Is it just because it is under the guise of art? Well, actually, I think no.
There is a long history of the naked or semi-naked woman in both classical art and popular culture, each with its own moral and political context. Within the classical framework of a gallery, we have not been scandalised by the naked female body for a long time and certainly not by the males. The Western art world has long been dominated by an obsession with female nudity, with however critical context; they have been obsessed with female nudity through the eyes of a male artist.
The muse, as an idea, is a pervasive and reductive role for women, but it is foundational to much of the art world. Women have filled the walls of galleries for decades, if not centuries, but it's not their work that's filled them, nor their names. The naked woman
These never shocks in that context, but historically, the moment these images leave that environment, they take on a different perception entirely.
In recent years, there has been a push for the reclamation of the female body, especially in how it is depicted and by whom. What I have seen, which Im sure many of us women can attest to, is that there is a much greater moral burden associated with nudity when a woman chooses it for herself. Nowhere is this more evident than in the discussion of consent, sex and pornography. Though sexualising media (that has, mind you, been exploitative, degrading and often unethical) of women has been widely available for decades, there is a sector of society that loudly voices disgust for women who choose to engage in it consistently. There is a condemnation, particularly from men, of women who are seen to be willingly sexualising themselves through pop culture or even in our personal lives. And so it seems sexualising women is only acceptable when they don't consent to it. This is perhaps what makes Tea's project so interesting and important to discuss.
Women's willingness to send intimate pictures of themselves to another woman completely outside of a sexual context for the production of art is emblematic of an entirely new relationship between muse and artists that exists void of male interjection, and how consent alters our veracity for female nakedness in art and societal contexts. Moreover, as a personal interest, it opens up a new line of questions around how art is received both in and out of a gallery space.
This avenue for discussion opened up almost immediately for me when I walked through the studio, and I was keen to understand how, given its difference from Sophie's previous works, this motif came to her, and whether she was aware of the weight she carried as she was creating this work. Being a woman is to be responsible for persecution, from a very young age, and as Sophie so often strives to create an environment where women of all backgrounds can feel seen and at home, we discussed what that kind of culpability was like, especially with something as sensitive as body image. “There’s definitely responsibility there. When you’re painting bodies - especially naked bodies - it carries weight whether you want it to or not. But my focus has always been on the emotional rather than the political. If it ends up being political by challenging beauty standards or empowering women, that’s amazing, but it’s never from a place of agenda. I’m just trying to create work that makes people feel seen, safe and maybe a little kinder to themselves.” The clear intention behind Tea's work has always been connection, connection to her body, her audience. There's something so deeply personal and intuitive about her practice that so easily lent itself to community.
Another secondary motif outside the female body began to emerge as I circled the room: the inclusion of iPhones in many of the cameras.
From her original, more abstract work to her current work, there is a consistency in intention. It is something I love about her catalogue: no matter where I pick back up with her work, there is still a sense of familiarity and earnestness that pulls me in time and time again. There are even, aesthetically, some nods to her personal work that again just provide such warmth. Particularly, there is an exuberance in colour and an energy with which she paints that feels nostalgic. In my mind, I place the abstract of her past as the backdrop to the collection at present, and it is nearly impossible to separate the two. I asked if this was a feeling Sophie herself shared.” They’re definitely part of the same journey. The abstraction was where I learned how to express emotion through colour, movement and instinct. That hasn’t gone anywhere - I've painted lots of figurative work recently, which I still use those foundations in. Even now, the drips, splats and colour clashes are still really emotional responses. I still love abstraction and expressive work and will always consistently come back to it.”
Sophie balances intentionality with an irrelevance for life and her work that is eminently refreshing. If one thing stands out alongside her incredible work, it is her fantastically candid and charming personality. Though her work is so oblique, laden with complexity and feeling, there is never the sense that she feels above the audience, and that is an increasingly rare trait in someone who possesses the talent she does. I picked up at the viewing on a lack of faces and hands with in the paints, and when we talked, proposed my own theories of voyeurism and anonymity related to the previous discussion of muse and sexualization, when i looked for confirmation, Sophie humorously admitted “I absolutely LOVE this question, but honestly, I just don’t like painting faces x”
I couldn't help but laugh at the admission, not from a place of judgment but of pure relief. In a world of people who believe they are intellectually superior and far too deep for their own audience; it was cleansing to speak with an artist whose talent matched their humility.
And that, for me, gets to the heart of why I love Sophie's work: she wants her audience to be in on it. From Send Nudes Live to her Charity Shop Fridays (which I must say are brilliant and well worth checking out), she finds ever-increasing interesting and fun ways to bring you along. A facet I'm happy to tell you will continue into 2026, “I really want to keep expanding the sense of community within my work - larger shows, live experiences, public art and even more projects that involve the audience directly. I’m massively excited about continuing projects like Send Nudes Live and exploring ways art can exist outside traditional gallery spaces. I want to keep pushing scale, storytelling and collaboration, and honestly just keep growing as an artist and a person.”
If like me your now enthralled by the blend of emotive figure and casual charm and you must follow to see where it takes Sophie Tea then keep your eyes fix and her TikTok and Instagram and if you're lucky enough she has “a show planned for South Korea, New York and Sydney this year. Better start bloody painting xx” do yourself a favour and see these works in person.