Viral Instagram artist Sophie Tea has launched her latest exhibition Send Nudes with a ‘body confidence’ nude catwalk.
Naked volunteers proudly walked the pink carpet after Sophie had painted them in colourful and abstract brush strokes.
The young artist launched her new exhibition after deciding that she wanted to create work that was really meaningful – and she felt helping to promote body confidence in women was the perfect place to start.
‘I’ve always wanted to paint women,’ Sophie tells Metro.co.uk. ‘I wanted to do something with real value and purpose – and the reaction to the work so far has been so encouraging.’
Sophie’s work focuses on the nude, female form – using abstract lines and bright colours. After starting off her work by simply Googling ‘naked women’, she opened out the invitation to her Instagram followers – asking them to send her nudes. The response was overwhelming.
‘Overnight, I woke up with more than 1,000 images from women,’ explains Sophie.
‘It has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life.’
Sophie says the best thing about the images she received was the incredible range of diversity.
‘I got all ages, sizes, ethnicities, women with mastectomy scars, cesarean scars, stretch marks, colostomy bags – these were all real women, and it was so beautiful to see.
‘The most incredible thing has been all the messages I received with the images. Along with their nudes, women sent me messages explaining why it was important for them to share their nudes.
‘One woman who had had her breasts removed, said that her mum had passed away just two weeks ago from breast cancer – that made me realise how important this was to women.’
Sophie’s artistic shift into nudes is based on a life long interest in the human form. Inspired by artists such as Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville critical studies of naked women drawn at school filled her childhood home.
Since launching as an independent artist three years ago, she has been eager to revisit painting the female form.
Paying tribute to how amazing our bodies are has come at a good time for me,’ says Sophie. ‘Mine has been telling me for awhile that it’s not been treated well.
‘I have pushed myself to the limit and then crashed, time and again, only to wear that exhaustion as a badge of honour. I hope the Send Nudes exhibition will force me to treat my own body with more respect and in turn promote more self love.’
Sophie is working with the breast cancer awareness charity Coppafeel, and donations can be made to the charity at www.SophieTeaArt.com for a chance to win a hero piece from the exhibition.
‘It has been the best responses to a show I’ve ever had – I’m on a massive high from the launch last night.
‘There’s such a fantastic movement towards body confidence at the moment, so to be part of that conversation feels like such a privilege.
‘No body is normal – what is “normal”? F**k anyone who tries to tell you that you have to look a certain way.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/11/artist-creates-exhibition-naked-paintings-asking-women-send-nudes-11666460/
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