Painter Sophie Saunders is interested in colour, forms, and the communication of a sense of the ineffable - things too great or extreme to be expressed verbally. Saunders creates work in oil paint on canvas or board, or conversely, gouache on paper, creating images with either highly textural, or very flat surfaces. Her abstracted works depict hermetic, overlaid geometric shapes in vivid colourways.

Having lived in Japan for two years, Saunders’ quiet art practice reflects her spirituality, summed up by quotes from Vedanta, a school of Hindu philosophy:

"There is this unchanging, eternal, peaceful, blissful entity called the Self. We ought to get to know more about it. We might learn something."

- H.H. Shantanand Saraswati

"What brings him back to himself is the interior light, and not exterior objects."

- RabindranathTagore

Sophie Saunders (born 1968, Wellington) graduated in 1992 with a Master of Fine Art in Painting from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, subsequently showing in nine solo shows. She was a finalist in many awards before taking on the Rita Angus artist residency in Wellington in 1998-99. Saunders spent several years lecturing in Fine Arts and Design at Massey University, and has been teaching painting at The Learning Connexion since 2004. Saunders lives and works on the Kāpiti Coast.