About Art, Nature and Luxury Brands β Featuring Sophie Le Van Gong
For this article, I had the participation of Sophie Le Van Gong, an awesome painter and borderless artist who shared with me her thoughts about creating a new career in the art industry and her most recent collaboration with Marie Claire Arabia (October 2020).
FROM LAW AND FITNESS TO ART
Sophie started her career path in two very different industries before focusing entirely on being a borderless artist. She first studied law, worked a few years in the legal sector then decided to get new challenging activities through a professional retraining to become a personal trainer.
And thanks to her long experience in sports and dancing, she discovered that her personal fulfilment should definitely pass through art.
Sophie defines herself as a self-taught artist with a huge love for myths, history and nature. Themes that can be easily found in her artwork. Her huge passion for oriental art also influenced her style and artistic path, incorporating both Chinese ink and acrylic in some of her compositions.
Sophie believes that her late introduction in the art industry gives her a special asset: she can add a business experience to the artistic dimension.
And this gives her a certain ability to consider the world around her when creating her artwork, which allows her to be more flexible and adapt herself as fast as possible.
However, Sophie stated that in order to create, she needs goals and guidelines in order to direct her inspiration towards a final result.
NATURE ADVOCATE
Sophie always felt very concerned about the current environmental issues that we are all facing. This advocacy for Nature, led her to reflect this in her compositions and even portrait more than 185 floral compositions to represent flowers from all around the world.
What is more, she already submitted her project βNatural Flowersβ to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow (1β12 November 2021), and is waiting for a confirmation to know if her composition will be included in the program. (Best of luck, Sophie!!)
LUXURY BRANDS & ART
Sophie also shared with me her most recent experience with Luxury Brands thanks to the collaboration with Marie Claire Arabia (Oct. 2020).
She offered her art as a way to differentiate the products by using art that was created on a tangible canvas and not on a digital program β as we usually find in most of the branding & communication campaigns worldwide -.
The result is an outstanding and creative mixture between a product and its aesthetic and unique essence. Sophieβs artworks convey both worlds (art and marketing) into a unique and ethereal theme.
While speaking to her, she said something that resonated with my own point of view about brands and the luxury market:
Luxury brands use beautiful pictures. They use most aesthetic styles that best fit their concepts and campaigns. So, why not use art too more often?
She believes that in Luxury Brands there is a huge tendency on using the most creative designs and concepts. But all that we see in those campaigns is made, in most cases, by digital artists. Itβs original, but itβs not βrealβ (tangible).
Having in mind that one of the biggest traits of a luxury brand is its uniqueness and that each artistic composition is completely different, this could lead to a very interesting and creative combination that I personally would love to see more often in the luxury market.
When we talked about the most influential & current trends in this industry, Sophie highlighted the rise of urban art (street art), and the increasing interest in Nature.
Itβs a fact that we are much more conscious about our planet and how important it is to protect our environment. Plus, Sophie believes that these uncertain times make people want to return to their roots, as a way to find in nature and animals that βsafe placeβ that canβt be found in the urban world. Or to find themselves.
Another trend that she also found is the use of urban art (street art) β which is a tendency that humankind already began in Ancient History with mosaics and other artistic compositions. β of course, under another artistic and cultural category.
ASPIRATION & INSPIRATION
Sophie confessed that her aspiration is to become a recognized artist. And I am very sure that her most recent collaboration with Marie Claire Arabia will be a decisive step that will take her closer to that goal.
She believes that the most common difficulties that she is facing as an emerging artist is that her personal and artistic brand is still quite new in the industry, and mixing art with branding can be difficult or daunting nowadays.
Sophie also wanted to share two pieces of advice to those artists that also want to collaborate with brands from other industries:
First of all, it is essential to understand the brand before contacting them. Know their message, values and mission. Secondly, be flexible and adaptable to the current needs.
To finish todayβs article, I wanted to include the inspiring words that Sophie shared with me when talking about what art meant for us:
βReality needs to dream. But dreams need to be real. The real world needs dreams, but also needs to stay focused on the reality. I aspire to create a link between the world and dreams through my art.β
Isnβt it inspiring?
You can have a look at her artwork and stay updated with her newest compositions here:
π¦ Sophieβs website: http://sophie-levangong.com/en/home/
π¦ Sophieβs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lvgsophie/
π¦ Collaboration with Marie Claire Arabia: https://www.instagram.com/p/CF7N1QggaCZ/?igshid=8jt1g7enp43s
Thank you SO MUCH Sophie, for your inspiring words and collaboration with My Little Branding Blog! π¦
If you liked my article, feel free to like, share or comment below!
π¦ Thank you for reading! π¦
