Pilgrim Woman in Purple and Red Print

For Singapore-based Taiwanese artist Sofia Lo, every experience is produced by a trauma and its intensity. Her desire is to express the intensity of that trauma through an artistic process she calls "distillation." The inspiration for the artistic mode of "distillation" emerges organically from Sofia's experience of negotiating and renegotiating her identity as a modern nomad. Rather than viewing her existence as "root-less," Sofia has sought to memorialize her experiences by capturing mood in the amber of her canvas. If the nomad is typically imagined to be a barbarian who disregards the heritage of each place he travels, Sofia sees her nomadism as a form of pilgrimage -- and honors the mood of each place and each culture she encounters. A devotee of the great romantics and expressionists, Sofia uses her canvas to pay homage to the lines of Schiele, the colors of Klimt, and the intense moods of Alma-Tadema. But it was the moodscapes of certain metropoles in Asia that concretized these stylistic influences. The aesthetics of the old pleasure quarters in Gion, Kyoto inspired in her a desire to capture on canvas the paradoxical intensity of the evanescent transience of beautiful things. A world away from Japan, amidst the steamy cities and lush jungles of South India, she encountered a vibrant palette of colors and intense emotions in the processions of Thaipusam pilgrims. Sofia has chosen for her current home the islands of Southeast Asia. She revels in the confluence of Asian cultures blown to and fro on the breezes of the cooling monsoons.