Yellow flowers droop over a yellow vase in one of Vincent Van Goh’s famous paintings. The original painting, part of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” series, hangs in the National Gallery in London. Sophie Barlow remembers visiting the museum on a family vacation when she was young and seeing that painting. For her, that was the first time she recognized that art is a “real thing” that people pay money to go and see.
“It doesn’t have to be just a fun thing. It can be something that you spend your life doing,” Barlow said.
Barlow, an Art and Technology major in her third year at the University of Oregon, creates art that mostly centers around a common theme — things are not always what they seem. One of her pieces depicts an image of someone’s head. The androgynous person is painted completely in shades of green and blue. Bubbles magnify parts of the face, adding an eerie effect as eyes crowd the image.
“I created the image by first drawing the person with eyeballs crying more eyeballs,” Barlow said. “It was all for a digital drawing class project about drawing destroyed drawings. This piece is the one I was talking about when I discovered for myself how being a digital artist for school can intertwine with the physical world and my physical art.”
As an Art and Technology major, Barlow creates a lot of artwork digitally, but she still makes time to sketch. Barlow explained that she almost always has a sketchbook with her. Part of her routine is repetition. She draws the same thing over and over until she hits a “breakthrough.”
Barlow recently started working as an illustrator for Align Magazine, a fashion and lifestyle magazine at UO. In the spring issue, Barlow published her first piece, an illustration for a written story titled, “Giving yourself grace.” The story is about mental health and motivation during the pandemic. As the title suggests, the author urges people to not feel guilty about how they are spending their time — productive or not.
“There was a time in the pandemic where I was dealing with a lot of mental health stuff, which I feel like a lot of people were,” Barlow said. “Feeling unmotivated but also like I had to be motivated. If I wasn’t doing art every day, what was I doing? But realizing that I just need to do what feels right for me.”
The accompanying image Barlow produced looks down upon a woman who is lost in her thoughts. A colorful stream of images — flowers, hands, mushrooms and doodles — flows from her head. Along with the written piece, the image represents mental health and the need to give yourself grace.
For Barlow, art has always been a kind of medicine. She struggles with both anxiety and ADHD.
When she draws, Barlow is able to forget about her worries and focus completely on her art, forcing her to be calm and express her emotions on paper. She tries to incorporate creativity throughout her daily life.
“When I am drawing, at least in my sketchbook, it’s for me,” Barlow said. “It’s kind of all over the place, it doesn’t have to make sense.”
As an art student who is nearing graduation, Barlow expressed struggling with “imposter syndrome.” In other words, doubting her abilities and worrying about her future as an artist and the likelihood of creating a career in art.
Over the past few months, Barlow also began sharing her work via Instagram. She said that over the last term, she has begun to “feel more involved in the art community which makes me feel a little more confident in myself and where I’m at with my education.”
Barlow plans on graduating in the spring of 2022. Along with a major in Art and Technology, she is also working toward an anthropology minor and an education certificate. She is not sure where she will end up career-wise, but has considered becoming an art teacher. She also enjoys animation and is looking into an internship at Laika animation studios in Portland.
