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Talents: Sofie Burgaard – Danish Visual Artist
Sofie Burgaard
Visual Artist
Find me: @sofieburgaard
Secret Talent: I can do 10 backwards rolls underwater in a row!
Tell us about your work in a few words!
In my artistic practise I often work with surreal or supernatural narratives as a way of reflecting upon the complexity and ambivalence I experience in the world. I am very interested in blurring or lifting boundaries to let all sorts of things melt together into beautiful, monstrous hybrids. I often create images with both animal and human features, and with plants growing on or out of the figures. Growth and decay as living conditions are also important themes in my work.
While my materials vary a lot (oil paint, ceramics, computer animations, plastic etc.) my colour palette is very stable. I always work with bright and appealing colours such as light yellow, mint green and baby pink as a way to sugar-coat the absurdity or melancholy in my creations, or to create an over-the-top sweetness that in itself becomes absurd or maybe even creepy or repulsive. The pastel colours are definitely an indispensable and a characteristic of my practise. I also have to admit that I just really love pastel colours!
“I often work with surreal or supernatural narratives as a way of reflecting upon the complexity and ambivalence I experience in the world. I am very interested in blurring or lifting boundaries to let all sorts of things melt together into beautiful, monstrous hybrids.”
What materials are your favourite to work with?
I have always painted, so I feel a very strong connection to that media. But at the moment I am having a bit of a crush on plastic materials such epoxy and polyurethane. I just tried casting for the first time and it went really well. The plastic frames I made by casting are so synthetic and shiny and I absolutely love them!
Are you in love?
Yes <3 I am very in love with a sweet and caring guy named William. I met him about two years ago at a science/art festival in Copenhagen and my affection for him has only grown ever since. Luckily William is also my boyfriend (haha). We have been together for about a year and a half.
Latest text message you sent?
What a nerve wrecking question! The latest text message I send: For my sake she is welcome to join ?❤️
What is creativity to you?
To me creativity is about growth, about letting something develop. Maybe the seed to an idea was planted by something you saw, something someone told you or maybe by your own creations, but to me the creative part is to make the seed grow into something new that you haven’t seen or didn’t expect. It is also about losing a bit of control and trusting the process. Of course you can direct the growth of a plant, but even if you do, it so often has a will of its own.
What is your favourite part of the creative process?
That is a difficult question to answer. I think every part of the creative process has its pros and cons. It’s super exiting to be in the beginning of a project because everything is possible, because you haven’t set a direction for your work yet. At the same time it is terrifying and the freedom can paralyse you. The end of a project has some of the same feelings to it, in my experience. You are excited to finally finish what you aimed for and to show it to the world, but at the same time you are frightened about the emptiness on the other side. Maybe I like the time in between the most – I like the weeks where I am in the middle of the process just working on the artwork and being the only one who knows its direction. I feel a strong intimacy with my works in that time, before finishing them and letting them fly out in the world to be judged and hopefully also loved by others.