Sophie Ryan is an emerging artist from Bathurst, New South Wales, now based in Canberra. Growing up surrounded by wide, open landscapes sparked her love for colour, texture and movement — things that continue to shape her work today. For Sophie, painting is a way of capturing the feeling of a place rather than just how it looks — a mix of memory, emotion, and intuition.

She moved to Canberra in 2018 to study at the ANU School of Art and Design, graduating in 2022. Her practice focuses mostly on painting, using gestural brushstrokes, bold colour, and layered texture to explore connection to place and the energy of the landscape.

Sophie’s recent work dives into ideas of gesture, embodiment and memory — often blurring the lines between painting and drawing — as she finds new ways to express what landscapes feel like, not just what they are.

Solo Exhibitions
2025- Exhibition Display, Grazing at Gundaroo.
2025- The Outskirts, Q Gallery, Canberra.
2024- The Spring Collection, Meet Gather Collect, Canberra.
2024- Ripple - The River Series, Tyger Gallery, Yass.
2024 - River Run, The Front Gallery, Canberra.
2024- Golden Hour, Strathnairn Arts Association, Canberra.
2023- Rolling, The Good Day Lifestyle Co, Mudgee.
Group Exhibitions
2024 - Q Gallery, Canberra
2023- I am Trying to Break your Heart, Tyger Gallery, Yass.
2022- New Alumni, School of Art and Design ANU, Canberra.
2021- In Between the Lines, Tributary Projects, Ainslie Gorman Art Centre, Canberra.
2021- The QAS Copy a Master - LD- Sculptors- Nudes exhibition, Queanbeyan Art Society.
2021- The Salon 21 Exhibition, Aarwun Gallery, Canberra.
2021- The Graduating Exhibition (School of Art and Design ANU), online.
2019- Here and Now, Orange Regional Gallery, Orange.
Australian National University
Double Degree in Art History and Curatorship and Visual Arts.

Sophie has always had an innate sense of creativity.