Sophie Coe is an emerging artist living and working in lutruwita/Tasmania. She is currently completing her Honours in Fine Art at the University of Tasmania. During her studies, she has exhibited in several group shows, including three at the student-run Sunroom Gallery, where she also served as co-chair of the Sunroom Gallery Society. In this role, she curated and participated in Fringe Void, a student exhibition presented as part of Dark Fringe. Sophie was a finalist in the Henry Jones Art Prize in both 2023 and 2024, and will present her first solo exhibition at Good Grief in October 2025.

 

Sophie's practice explores how beauty operates as a subtle but powerful form of social control. Through meticulously rendered oil paintings, she examines the ways aesthetic ideals, framed as empowerment, are internalised and enacted in ways that limit women's autonomy. Her work reflects the tension between surface allure and the psychological cost of conformity, using traditional beauty to critique the systems that demand it. Anchored in feminist thought, Sophie's practice exposes how prettiness disciplines, distracts, and diminishes under the guise of personal choice.