Sophie Nash

I picked up a paintbrush before I even knew how to write.

I'll start by being honest- I have had a tricky relationship with my paintbrush over the years. I was discouraged in school from painting, despite expressing my love for the fine art, and I have long-since battled with those (now) inner critical voices I heard as a young person. Yet, to this day, I have continued to persevere with my art.

I fell in love with oil paints during the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, I was working on the frontline for the NHS in my local hospital, having just graduated from University with a degree in Religious Studies. Painting for me, I discovered, was an outlet for releasing the intense stresses of life.

What I saw then, in one of the most devastating periods of human history, was an insight into the delicate intricacies of human life. Before COVID hit in our hospital, I'd begun to build an understanding of human life, the joys and the sorrows that come with being alive. But it wasn't until our entire workforce was thrown into the deep end of crisis that I began to really understand what it meant to be human, all whilst fighting against something that felt completely in-humane. I knew I had to start channelling these feelings of suffering...

Religious Studies BA (Hons)