Former Professional Athlete Sophie Cape Wins the $100,000 Hadley’s Art Prize

There’s no denying the harsh realities of an artist’s life in Australia – especially when you consider what Sophie Cape was doing when she received a call to say she had won the $100,000 Hadley’s Art Prize, Australia’s most generous landscape art prize.

“I was taking the bins out when Amy [Jackett, prize curator] rang. I was up to my arms in filthy rubbish,” Cape tells Broadsheet with a laugh. “I’d just taken on another job helping manage an Airbnb property, I’d hit the bottom of the barrel and had thought I was going to have to find a new life, a new career. I’ve been thrown a lifeline.”

Cape is no newcomer to the art scene. The Sydney-born contemporary artist has been represented since 2011 by Olsen Gallery in Paddington, where she has held numerous solo exhibitions and has won multiple awards, including the Portia Geach Memorial Award in 2014 for her painting of actor Dan Wyllie.

Nevertheless, the significance of winning this prestigious annual award is not lost on Cape.

“It’s a very big deal, the Hadley’s has always attracted high-end artists and I’m in very good company, I’m very honoured,” says Cape. Finalists’ work includes painting, drawing, printmaking and digital collage from artists such as Ken Done; 2018 Hadley’s winner Neil Haddon; Utopia, Northern Territory artist Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray; and Tasmanian artists Raymond Arnold and Valerie Sparks. The latter two received honourable mentions from the judges this year.

Cape may be an established Australian artist, but this is, in fact, her second high-profile career. Previously, Cape was an international athlete, representing Australia in downhill skiing and sprint cycling. A highly competitive and determined skier, Cape was forced to retire after one too many injuries, including 57 broken bones, four knee reconstructions and the near amputation of her leg.

Rather than give up, she joined the Australian Institute of Sport, where she trained as a sprint cyclist with the goal of representing Australia in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But after multiple surgeries, many of them experimental, her body gave in, and she was forced to immediately cease sport and give up the only life she had known and loved.

“You’re left to deal with the consequences psychologically, physically, it’s tough. I’d reached a point of complete burnout and muscle damage and still carry permanent injuries.”

After retiring, she was diagnosed with ADHD, OCD and became withdrawn and depressed.

“I did go down the path of drugs and alcohol and other stuff, but [it didn’t work]. I had to go to rehab,” she says.

It was Cape’s mother (artist Ann Cape) who suggested Sophie explore her natural talent for art, so she reluctantly enrolled in the National Art School. In 2010, artist John Olsen awarded her the school’s figure drawing prize and John’s son, gallerist Tim Olsen, brought Cape into his stable not long after.

“If I didn’t have art, I’d be a mess,” she says.

Today, the adrenalin, drive and physical and mental challenges she craves are found through her artmaking process, often involving the artist throwing herself bodily onto the canvas. Her works are always created outdoors in environments she can’t control and which typically inform and “infect” her canvasses.

Rather than use art supplies, Cape collects materials from the land – soil for pigment, burnt trees for charcoal, and whatever nature chooses to leave on the canvas in the weeks and months she leaves it outdoors.

Her Hadley’s Art Prize award-winning work, Thunder shifts the shivering sands, was created in response to the 2024 floods and resulting landslides on the NSW coast, where she now lives and works, the rust-stained floodwaters and burgundy soil contributing to the canvas. A comment on climate change and environmental upheaval, Cape’s work was commended by the judges for its portrayal of the Australian landscape “not by illustration, but rather direct material presence made in collaboration with the elements with the artist working directly within the aftermath of natural events.”

First held in 2017, the prize – which is named after Hadley’s Orient Hotel in Hobart, where finalists’ works are displayed – attracts entries from all over Australia and is the richest prize for landscape art, ahead of the Wynne and Glover prizes. An acquisitive award, it seeks to contribute to the Tasmanian and Australian art scene. This year’s judges include Southern Kaantju/Umpila woman, multidisciplinary artist and 2025 Natsiaa winner Naomi Hobson; director, curatorial and cultural collections at the University of Tasmania, Caine Chennatt; and leading Tasmania-based artist Catherine Woo.

Cape is in the process of completing a 10-metre private commission through Olsen Gallery for a home in Sydney, and this month took part in a group exhibition at Mosman Art Gallery curated by her mother, but she says art prizes like Hadley’s are providing much-needed support.

“I really take my hat off to them because they recognise the challenges we face,” she says, noting artists must cover shipping, framing and entry costs for most competitions, whereas Hadley’s subsidises shipping and travel and offers free accommodation to finalists at Hadley’s Orient Hotel.

“They genuinely care about the arts and artists, which is amazing.”

Hadley’s Art Prize exhibition is on display at Hadley’s Orient Hotel, Hobart until September 21. Artworks are for sale and entry to the exhibition is free.

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