When an athlete becomes an artist expect something you’ve never seen before.

Sophie Cape has had many lives.

She’s followed multiple paths, believing all of them to be her ‘dream’. She’s fought and almost killed herself along the way. She trod those paths until they weren’t paths anymore. And her focus was forced, drastically and traumatically, to change.

At 39, Cape’s “lives” have included: professional ski racer; professional cyclist; critically acclaimed artist. She was headed for the Olympics for both sports. Now, she loses herself in nature to create works of art.

She has broken countless bones. Has had several near-death experiences. And, in a series of surgeries with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), has had the fascia ripped off her quadriceps and blood vessels re-directed to her legs – all in the name of success.

“My father pushed us a lot when we were young,” Cape told Mamamia. “From the moment we could walk practically, he would make us run around the point where we lived and do things like push ups and sit ups and star jumps.”

“He would say things like ‘pain is only weakness exiting the body’, or ‘coming second is still losing’. It’s extreme in hindsight, but I’m extremely grateful because it turned me into an athlete. It gave me this innate understanding of my body.”

'Running around the point' turned into skiing and surfing and fishing. Skiing, especially, for Sophie.

Then a ski racer.

Then she found herself travelling the world, skiing competitively. Falling down, getting back up. Breaking bones, recovering and going onto win again. On her way to the Olympics.

Finally, Cape had "one accident too many" and, after narrowly escaping death following a severe fall, she returned to Australia. Her career as a professional skier was over.

Soon after, the Australian Institute of Sport was scouting for cyclists to send to the Olympics. They didn't want experienced cyclists. They wanted athletes.

It was an experiment that saw more than 100 girls from different "leg-power" sports (rugby, running, rowing, skiing) tested for the physiological hallmarks of athleticism: bone density, bloods, limb length, and the concentration of fast-twitch and slow-twitch fibres.

"They chose 25 of us and they said, 'you girls have got what it takes to make it at the Olympic Games... Now all you need is to learn how to ride a bicycle," Cape said. "This was a very different approach to ski racing, in which you make it through guts and determination. This was a much more scientific approach."

Cape and the team spent six weeks at the AIS in intensive training.

"The first day at the velodrome was a bit disconcerting but also entertaining - none of us had done it before," she said. "But crashing at the velodrome was nothing compared to crashing on a sheet of ice, going at 150 kilometres-an-hour and wearing only lycra."

Six weeks later, they sent the girls to the National Trials. "We all did really well, considering we'd only been training for six weeks," she said. "After that, we left the AIS and it was all about personal determination. We had to make it on our own."

Again, Cape was destined for the Olympics, this time in the velodrome.

But, before she could get there, her body gave way. She tried, and tried. But she could not overcome this in-explainable, unbearable pain in her legs. In desperation she, along with the AIS and several sports specialists, tried two, major "experimental surgeries".

"It was a surgery no one in the world had ever done before," she said. "They cut the fascia off all my quad muscles, which would mean there was no restriction to my muscular growth."

"It stopped the pain and worked really well for a short time," she continued. "The muscle growth was sort of obscene, it was like chicken legs. But then the pain got worse again.'

The next step? Vascular surgery.

"They thought I wasn't getting enough blood supply to my muscles, so they cut my stomach open and took veins from my legs to form a direct route from my heart to my legs," she explained.

When asked if she had second thoughts about any of these surgeries at the time, she shrugs it off.

"It was in consultation with doctors and sports physicians," she said. "To be honest, it seemed quite normal. As an athlete you do reach a level where you've worked so hard, and you've put in so much, you really will do anything to succeed. Only in hindsight does it seem extreme."

The cost of raising a sporting prodigy. Post continues below.

After a time, even after the surgeries, the pain became unbearable.

"I had exhausted every option. It got to a point where I could go for as hard as possible for 10 seconds and then I'd lose control of my muscles," Cape said. "I won gold in the state championships in WA and I fell of the bike and slid across the finish line. I had to climb up to the podium with half my bottom hanging out of the lycra and blood running down my legs."

"I kept collapsing. I couldn't use my muscles or walk properly," she continued. "They sent me to the AIS in Canberra where I spent time in float tanks and pretty much had to learn to walk again."

She kept trying for five years, but nothing worked. She still has no answer as to what went wrong. Certainly, her body suffered some sort melt down. Perhaps it'd been over-trained, been pushed just one injury, one sprint, too many.

Even now, she cannot exercise without collapsing. "As soon as my body senses lactic acid it shuts down," she said. "I can't even run for the bus."

Does it drive her crazy? I asked.

"Yes, it did for a long time. I found sport very therapeutic and I fell into a massive hole when I couldn't do it anymore," she said. "I am really glad I don't have to get up at 4am though. That's one good thing."

All that energy. The focus. The hunt for adrenaline. And the constant striving to do better - where could it go? It had to be released, but Cape didn't know how. "I tried everything. Drugs, alcohol. Nothing worked," she said.

She had to find yet another pathway. Finally, it was art. For someone on the outside, it seems like a logical, natural progression: Her grandmother was an artist, her mother is an artist, too.

But Cape wasn't convinced. "My whole life, people had been telling me to go to art school," she said. "But I didn't want to. I found myself with no other way to go, I didn't know what to do next, so I thought I'd give it a try for six months."

"I never understood how cathartic art could be until I did it. It became a substitute for what I lost."

Cape's works are powerful. They're raw, sometimes angry. Heavy in colour and texture and emotion.

"I started by trying to do self portraits of myself as an athlete," she said. "I did this as a way to deal with the trauma I'd been through. But then my teacher said to me 'stop trying to paint yourself, and instead use yourself, like an athlete would, to create. Get inside the work'."

"I did this, and I went into the bush - it seemed natural for me. My whole life I have been competing against nature - competing against the mountainside while skiing; competing against my own body; competing against the clock. This was no different."

Cape's works are a process. She paints on a canvas and leaves it outside in the weather overnight. She camps out there with it, and wakes to find it nibbled by animals or rained on or covered in dirt, or swept away in streams. "There are pieces of my work lost all over the country - ones I couldn't get back."

When she talks about her art, you an hear the love and intensity in her voice. "Creating art is like an intense exposure into the struggles and realities of humanity," she said.

At first it was her experience as an athlete that fuelled the feeling behind her art. Then it changed. It became even more personal. More confronting.

"My father has been suffering from frontal lobe dementia for a long time," she said. "I used to idolise him - he was the one that made me into an athlete - and now, the disease has completely flipped his personality. He's become aggressive and violent and negative. It's getting to a stage where I've known the new him for almost as long as I knew the old him. It's like he's been replaced."

It feels cliche and trite to talk about the 'lessons' Cape has learnt. But, with a life story like hers, how can you not ask?

"If I had my time over again I would do the exact same things and make the exact same decisions," she said. "I wouldn't be the person or the artist I am today if it hadn't been for the trauma of my life in sport."

"Life is full of trials and adversity. It's how you deal with those trials that makes you learn, that teaches you to become a better person. It's important to follow your dreams - to be brave enough to follow your dreams - and, if it doesn't work out, to look out for something else. Something better."

"I could die tomorrow and I would be happy because I don't have a single regret. There is nothing I feel like I haven't tried or done or challenged myself with."

You can see more of Sophie's story tonight on Australian Story on the ABC. 

Sophie Cape's next exhibition will at the Olsen Gallery in Woolhara, Sydney and will run from April 26 to May 14. You can see more here.