S o p h i e W a l b e o f f e Just So
is Sophie Walbeoffe's first solo exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery. Born in South Devon, welltravelled in India, and now living in Kenya, Walbeoffe brings an intensity of emotional engagement to her work, as well as a lifetime of close observation. The great theme of her art is the Natural World: wild animals in their familiar habitats. The exhibition runs at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway Street, London W1T 6BA, from 3 May to 26 May, 2023.
Just So
Photo by Mia Collis
If you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of the mystery of man's fall, 2023 oil on canvas
47 x 120 cm
18 1/2 x 47 1/4 in
Moon Flowers Ibis and the White
Browed Robin Chats, 2022 oil on canvas
152 x 122 cm
59 7/8 x 48 in
Photo by Georgia Buchanan
Having studied Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art and later with Cecil Collins at the Central School of Art, Walbeoffe then spent three formative years painting in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, guided by Dr. Cynthia Moss, the distinguished scholar of elephant behaviour. It was in this landscape that Walbeoffe developed her enduring fascination with wildlife – birds and beasts existing in the fragile balance of their environment, in all their vitality, colour and beauty.
Giraffes Running, 2023 oil on canvas
160 x 121 cm
63 x 47 3/4 in
An elephant's child who was full of satiable curiosity, 2023 oil on canvas
47 x 120 cm
18 1/2 x 47 1/4 in
'When I work en plein air, I paint what I see very fast, usually with both hands. When in the studio, I paint what I feel and remember, more slowly.’
SOPHIE WALBEOFFE
One--two--three! And where's your breakfast?
2023
oil on canvas
122 x 152 cm
48 1/8 x 59 7/8 in
Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, 'Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.', 2023 oil on canvas
122 x 153 cm
48 x 60 1/4 in
connects Walbeoffe's enduring artistic concerns with the world of Rudyard Kipling’s celebrated stories of animal life and lore in both Africa and India. This reflects both a personal inheritance (Walbeoffe’s mother was Kipling’s goddaughter) and a recent re-engagement with Kipling’s writings, a rediscovery of their vivid charms and their complex, sometimes troubling, colonial contexts. Many of the paintings in the exhibition derive from an extended Kipling-inspired tiger-spotting trek that Walbeoffe made through the Satpura forest in remote Madhya Pradesh, India. The extraordinary beauties of this rugged terrain and its denizens (from tigers and leopards to antelope and sloth bears) are brilliantly captured in the flaring colours and commanding lines of her art. The majesty and character of the animals depicted carry, too, suggestive echoes of Kipling’s great creations.
Just So
Shere Khan, 'Now I'm going to close my eyes and count to ten,' 2023 oil on canvas
153 x 123 cm
60 1/4 x 48 1/2 in
Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close to the Crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, 2023 oil on canvas
50 x 120 cm
19 3/4 x 47 1/4 in
‘Thou art of the jungle and not of the jungle. And I am only a black panther. But I love thee little brother.’, 2023 oil on canvas
152 x 122 cm
59 3/4 x 48 in
If you can keep your head, when all about you are losing theirs..., 2023 oil on
Breakfast at the Thorntree, 2022 oil on canvas
152 x 122 cm
59 7/8 x 48 in
canvas
120 x 47 cm
47 1/4 x 18 1/2 in
An Owl of Fine Artistic Feelings, 2022 oil on canvas 152 x 122 cm 59 7/8 x 48 in
Elephants Playing With the Birds, 2022 oil on canvas
120 x 143 cm
47 1/4 x 56 1/4 in
What is this,' said the Leopard, 'that is so 'sclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?', 2023
oil on canvas
153 x 122 cm
60 1/4 x 48 in
'The atmosphere of the jungle was one of mystery and adventure. The light from the rising sun shone through the tall teak trees, casting a warm orange glow that illuminated huge rustling leaves folding into blue distant mountains.'
SOPHIE WALBEOFFE
Photo by Mia Collis
