Here at Slowdown Studio we love collaborating with emerging and established artists from across the globe. We recently had the opportunity to chat with Sophie Deller, the artist behind the new Fruit Bowl Art Print. Sophie Deller is a London-based artist working across digital illustration, paint, textiles, and ceramics. 
Who do you think is the most exciting emerging creative in your city?
There’s a lot of exciting work happening at the moment, especially in London, so it’s difficult to single out just one artist. More often than not, I find myself drawn to an artist’s process rather than the final outcome. That said, if I had to mention one artist whose work I’m particularly enjoying at the moment, it would be Billy Bagihole. There’s something really compelling about what he’s doing, and I’m excited to see where it goes.
Where are your favourite places to go in your city?
I spend a lot of time walking. I like moving through the city without too much of a plan—just following whatever feels interesting in the moment.
London is great for that because everything is quite close together but very visually different. You can move between completely separate atmospheres quite quickly and they all have their own rhythm and feel, so it’s fun just to explore.
I enjoy that sense of drifting and discovering new places or seeing familiar ones differently. Parks and open spaces—somewhere like Richmond Park or Hampstead Heath gives a completely different pace to the rest of the city and perhaps provides something alike to what I have been used to growing up outside the city.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
In simple terms: make more.
When I started, I was very focused on getting things right—trying to make something feel “correct” in a technical or literal sense. I began in hyperrealism, working in black and white, where correctness felt much more objective and defined.
But over time, through just continuing to make work, things began to shift. I didn’t sit down and decide to move into abstraction—it happened gradually through the process itself. The more I made, the more I started to notice different possibilities opening up—colour, looser forms, more freedom in how things could exist on the surface.
What changed most was realising that my thinking happens inside the process, not before it. By making more, I began to recognise what works, what holds, and what feels right—and that often led me somewhere I wouldn’t have planned or predicted.
That’s really how I arrived at the way I work now—more abstract, more open, a bit wonky, but still aiming for a kind of internal “correctness” or inevitability in the final piece.
So the most important thing I’d say is: stay in that cycle. Make, make again, and keep going. Don’t worry too much about direction or perfection early on, and don’t feel like you need to have it all figured out.
Clarity comes from doing. The work shows you where to go.
What are you listening to in your studio at the moment?
Music is a big part of how I work—I find it quite hard to make anything/ do anything in silence. Music helps me settle into a rhythm and stay in the process.
I don’t have a fixed playlist, it tends to shift depending on what I’m working on, my mood and how I feel on the day. Looking at my current spotify history, here are a few songs that are in the loop right now:
“The Dragon” Black Sea Dahu
“Birds Leave” Little Element
“Darling” Alice Phoebe Lou
“Swing” Billie Marten
“Juro que vi flores” MARO, Silvia Pérez Cruz
“Again and Again” Jagged Jaw, MINOVA
“Just Like a Summer Cloud” Kacy & Clayton
“Sink my Boat” Louis Sévigny
“Peter and the Wolf” Patrick Watson
“June” Mikayla McVey
Fruit Bowl Art Print by Sophie Deller
What inspired your design for this latest Print design?
The starting point wasn’t a single idea or reference—it came from working with shapes, colour, brushstrokes, and textures, and seeing how they interacted.
I had been drawing fruit in my sketchbook for a while, for no particular reason. Large bowls, small bowls, flat bowls - with various different fruits layered inside or balancing on top. I was enjoying how these shapes and colours were interacting with each other. There is something quite fun in repetition to me. I enjoy drawing the same thing or iteration of the same thing over and over again. That’s basically it! I decided on a big bowl for this particular piece and then filled it in with bold fruit with stickers.
What’s your favourite way to slow down?
Walking is probably the main thing for me. Just being outside, moving without a plan, and letting things unfold at their own pace.
Spending time in parks or around nature helps as well—places where things feel a little quieter and less structured. It’s not about doing anything in particular, but rather stepping away from routine and allowing space for ideas to settle and develop.
I’m also a keen swimmer, so on my days off I always start the morning with a long swim. It helps clear my head and leaves me feeling grounded, which means I can usually come straight home and get stuck into making work.
What’s the most memorable book you’ve read in the last few years?
I’m not a big reader, to be honest. The last trilogy I read was “The Hunger Games” - and that was a long time ago!
I prefer films.
What has been the happiest/most rewarding moment of your art career?
One of the most rewarding moments was working on a commission with George Ezra and Sony Music, where I designed a poster for a charity gig supporting “Mind.”
That felt like a really meaningful project—bringing together art and music, which are both really important to me, and contributing to something with a positive impact. Being invited to the show as part of that experience made it even more special and real.
How does living in your city influence your work? Is there anything about your city that has defined how or what you create?
Living in a different place almost certainly influences the work, but not in a way I can clearly isolate or describe.
I recently moved to London from Hayling Island, so there’s been a big shift in pace and surroundings. I’m aware that change must be affecting how I see and respond to things, but I don’t experience that influence as something direct or easily traceable within the work itself. Any attempt to define it too clearly would probably oversimplify something much more complex.
Because my process is quite open and experimental, I’m not working from fixed ideas, which makes it difficult to separate where one influence begins or ends. The work develops through a lot of overlapping factors—many of which I’m not fully aware of while I’m making.
So I’d say the city does influence the work, but not in a way I can definitively account for. Part of my process is allowing those influences to exist without needing to fully resolve or explain them. Trying to pin that down too clearly would likely close something off too early.
I’d rather leave that open and let the work develop on its own terms.
What are you most excited/looking forward to this year?
There are several exciting collaborations and partnerships in the works at the moment, all of which seem to be coming together at once. I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop and what opportunities emerge from them.
Alongside a print collaboration with Slowdown Studio, I’m also eagerly awaiting the launch of my blanket design, which was selected as one of the winning entries in the company’s prestigious annual competition last year. This feels particularly significant, as I had been entering the competition for eight years. To finally win among so many talented artists was incredibly rewarding.
More broadly, I hope this year allows me to continue building momentum and move closer to working full-time as an artist and illustrator, while developing my practice further and seeing where it leads me.
Instagram: @sophiedeller
Website: https://www.sophiedeller.co.uk
