My name is Sophia Anastasia;
I earn my income as a painter and illustrator.
I am moderately active on social media.
I wear found clothes that I repair with embroidery.
I do not go on holidays.
For my personal integrity I decided to stop flying which should not be read as a statement to others.
I try to not consume which has become increasingly easy over the past decade.
I built a greenhouse
(link) at my garden with 100% found building materials.
Materials transported by bicycle, of course, because I don't own a car.
History:
During art academy in Arnhem, Holland, 1980-1984, I started traveling and cycled from Gouda to Damascus.
In 1984 I hitchhiked to Nepal, cycled from Bangkok to Singapore, then stayed for some time in Singapore and eventually settled in Bali.
I surfed, painted, printed t-shirts, regularly travelled to Australia, made friends and had a relationship with film maker Lorne Blair (link)
with whom I built a house, co-produced a film and had a daughter. Sadly Lorne passed away shortly after our daughter's second birthday.
I was confronted with numerous difficulties regarding single parenthood and finances. Although I lived a fairly glamorous life in Bali I decided to go back to Holland to live in the real world.
In 2000 I moved to my birth city Utrecht with a new boyfriend, was left pregnant and had a son.
Two kids as a single mother and a new life to build in Holland was not always easy, especially since I was determined to persue my quest to earn my income with art.
Also my daughter was homesick for Bali.
We lived modestly and my children insisted I'd find a 'normal job'.
I showed my paintings to many galleries but they were not interested.
At some point my income got so low that I had to apply for welfare. I am grateful it was possible for the few years I needed it.
I had lived many years in countries where no such thing exists.
Trying to make a living as a painter despite the rejection of the art world I explored the social media and started building my website.
In order to commercialise my talents I followed an interior-design course for selling property, but however talented as an interior designer, I am not commercially talented.
At the Red Cross I worked for 15 years in a thrift-store as a volunteer.
Painting the Dom Tower at the city of Utrecht was my way out of social security.
In 2022 I was granted an solo exhibition at the Utrecht town hall.
Meanwhile my children are 24 and 31 years old and I divide my time between caring for my 95 year old father, gardening and and building my greenhouse.
The Vlampijp studio terminated for renovations and I neither can afford the increased rent for a studio nor do I feel comfortable in the monopolist game of studio space, so I am declining for the moment, exploring different ways to use my abilities.
At the moment setting up a community project to make a large tapestry for a primary school.
