Galway artist Sophie Coyle has recently taken up the post of Artist in Residence at the Appletree Youth Café. Sophie, who has been living in Dundalk for the past two years, will be running a number of programmes for teenagers at the Appletree Foundation’s premises in Roden Place.
Having originally trained as a horti-culturalist in Dublin’s Botanic Gardens, Sophie says that ‘Art and creativity has always been a huge driving force in my life.’
She sees a clear connection between horticulture and art and it wasn’t difficult for her to make the change to Illustration in 2002, when she went to Italy to study Illustration in the Academia D’illustrazione di Roma.
She furthered her studies in 2009 with a Diploma in Children’s Book Illustration under Adrienne Geoghegan at the Dublin Independent College.
‘Since 2003 I’ve taken on both garden design and Illustration work but in 2010, I made the decision to concentrate my creative efforts solely on Illustration,’ she says. She has done freelance work for Oxfam Ireland, Kilruddery Historic House and Gardens, Renvyle House Hotel in Connemara, and also various children’s books (not yet published) and album artwork.
With with background in Illustration she decided to use the medium of the graphic novel/comic book to base a series of four workshops in the Appletree Foundation as she feels this medium will be successful in drawing out the feelings of the young people about their lives and their community.
‘We began our workshop programme three weeks ago with an introductory course, ‘ Create Your Own Comic Book’, advertised in all the schools,’ she says. ‘The course received a great response and both weekly classes are completely full.’
‘Dundalk is a great place,’ she says. ‘It makes a nice change from Dublin as the big city doesn’t suit me so much. I love the mountains and going out in Dundalk – there’s a great entertainment vibe going on in Dundalk,’ says Sophie, who is also a musician.
