Sofia Wicks speaks from a place where discipline meets devotion. Years shaped by political study, public service, and the architecture of conventional success eventually gave way to a quieter, more insistent calling. In the stillness of a global pause, painting shifted from pastime to necessity. What began as practice became ritual; what began as ambition became surrender. The work now carries traces of that transformation — light reaching toward figures, invisible forces guiding fragile bodies, private memory offered as shared reflection. In this conversation, Sofia Wicks traces the path from certainty to risk, from security to meaning, and from image to truth.

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Can you pinpoint a single moment in your life when you realized art was not just a passion but your purpose? 

During the COVID pandemic, I was finishing university and then working from home. For the first time in my life, I had real uninterrupted time — and I poured all of it into painting. It became an obsession. I spent hours every day drawing, painting, and pushing myself technically. At the time, I was living in D.C., working in politics, and planning to become a lawyer. But slowly, art began to consume me in a way nothing else ever had. Eventually, it became impossible to ignore. I realized I didn’t just love making art — I needed it. And I knew I had to find a way to make it my life and my career. 

Have you ever felt drawn toward a conventional career path?
What made you take the "creative leap" despite the risks? 

I studied political science and worked in D.C. for several years. I had always imagined myself following a conventional path — conventional success, conventional stability. But something strange happens when you reach a certain level of comfort: you realize that safety alone can still feel empty. I spent most of my life chasing security, and when I started to achieve it, I felt myself yearning for something deeper. 

My father passed away when I was 21, and his death changed my relationship to risk. It showed me how quickly life can shift, how fragile everything is. It made me understand that if I was going to build a life, it had to be one I actually wanted to live. I took the creative leap because I couldn’t imagine a life without my art — and I want to spend my days doing what I love. 

Does spirituality or a connection to something larger than yourself influence your creative process? 

Yes — especially in my first solo show. I created a series of paintings where each figure seemed to be responding to a greater force, often personified through light or a large hand. Only after finishing the work did I fully understand what I was doing: I was reckoning with consciousness itself. The way it feels both intensely personal and somehow shared — like a tether that binds us together. 

I often think of us as marionettes on a network of invisible strings, moved by forces we can’t fully name. We feel those forces as truths we can’t ignore: love, grief, longing, transformation. They follow us like shadows. And in the end, we’re always faced with the same choice — to turn toward those truths, or to turn away.

How do you reignite creativity during those inevitable periods of self-doubt or stagnation? 

I try to bring myself back to play. When art becomes your career, it’s easy to get trapped in pressure — to make something “great,” something polished, something that proves you deserve to be here. And that pressure can kill creativity. 

So when I feel stuck, I let myself make work that doesn’t have to be beautiful. I’ll paint abstractly, more expressive and physical, without worrying about the outcome. I put on good music and focus on the materiality of paint — the movement, the texture, the sensation of being present. That’s usually where the spark comes back. 

What do you think is the most meaningful role an artist plays in society today? 

I think artists create mirrors. The most meaningful thing an artist can do is make vulnerable work — work that comes from an honest inner dialogue. The more personal the piece is, the more universal it becomes. People connect to sincerity. And in a world that often rewards performance, an artist’s honesty can be quietly radical. 

What unusual or unexpected sources of inspiration have deeply influenced your work?

I’ve kept a journal since I was eight years old. I have diaries that span my entire life. Sometimes I go back and read them, and I’ll find images or moments that feel worth painting. That practice reconnects me with my younger self — and in some cases, it feels like a way of healing old memories, or seeing them differently. 

Under what circumstances do you think art risks becoming pretentious?

Art becomes pretentious when it’s led by ego. The moment an artist starts creating work primarily to impress, to appear clever, or to please an audience — instead of telling the truth of their own experience — the work loses its tether. It becomes performative. And you can feel that immediately as a viewer. 

How do you think art should be valued—emotionally, socially, or monetarily? Is there ever an objective measure? 

Art isn’t necessary for survival in the way food or water is — but it’s necessary for meaning. It’s part of what makes life feel worth living. Monetary value will always be shaped by systems — markets, trends, institutions — but the emotional value of art is often deeper and harder to measure. In that sense, I don’t think there’s an objective metric. The truest measure is whether the work changes something inside someone, even slightly.

In a world flooded with imagery, what responsibility do artists have to stand out and say something authentic? 

I don’t think artists have to obsess over standing out. Everything has been said in some form — it’s unlikely any of us are having thoughts no one has ever had before. But authenticity isn’t about being unprecedented. It’s about being honest. The most powerful thing an artist can do is share something from their inner world with clarity and courage. If you’re truthful, the work will find its own voice — and people will feel it.

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Across each answer, a consistent thread emerges: art as tether. Tether to grief and love, to childhood memory and present longing, to forces unseen yet deeply felt. Sofia Wicks approaches painting not as performance, but as dialogue — with the self, with the past, with something larger that resists language yet insists on presence. In a culture saturated with images, this practice returns to sincerity, to play, to vulnerability as quiet resistance. The result is work that does not seek spectacle, but connection — and in that connection, offers something enduring.