Sophie Ash is a Melbourne-based Animator and illustrator who recently completed her final year of Animation at the Victorian College of the Arts. Concurrent to these studies, Ash represents Australia in Freestyle skiing at an elite level, and is on track to qualify for the Olympics in 2022. Much of her work is inspired by her strong emotional experiences training and competing as an elite athlete – both positive and negative – and how fear and stress distort perception. Through mediums such as animation, illustration and sculpture, she frames these experiences in her pursuit of athletic mastery – and performing in a ‘flow’ state. In 2019, she released the film Start Gate, which was inspired by her experiences at elite competition, namely the FIS Freestyle World Championships.