Sandy Tao Jo-Lan | Taiwan

During the trip to France on October, 2015, on the spur of the moment, I started to paint in front of Mont. St. Michel in Region Bretagne. The first experience of landscape paint-ing was so stunning that I was truly immersed in the tranquil surroundings and calm at-mosphere. Since then, l have been self-educated to do the colour pencil sketch, water-colour painting and oil on canvas.

When I visit a new city, l feel excited to visit art museums and galleries as l am able to see artists' works with various styles with my own eyes and l also feel so touched by their con-notations, composition, textures and colours of their works.

I like teaching English is as much as l like painting. Through teaching, l quite enjoy the in-teraction with my students, which is identical to the interaction with canvas, paper, brush-es and pigments when l paint. This is definitely a process of mutual discovery, develop-ment, growth and accomplishment.

Even though I learn painting on my own, l love to read other artists' portfolios and visit art exhibitions so as to obtain my creative inspiration and concepts from other artists.

As a result, painting for me is as playing puzzles. I love to see them be accomplished piece by piece. During this process, l am likely to calm my mind and to collect the memorial consonance of my life. In addition, painting for me is also the grace from God no matter ups and downs or happiness and sadness of my life, l would like to keep painting to re-lease and share my feeling and emotion with other people.

Moreover, painting is very interesting to me especially during trips, I am able to focus on various subjects with light floating and colour change. When I paint, I have to observe and watch every detail. I also like to paint some portraits, objects, surreal, imaginative and ex-pressive paintings to reflect on my thoughts and feelings.

As for my exhibition experiences, I had several individual art shows in Taiwan. In addition, one of my artworks was selected for Salon d'Automne 2020 in Paris, France. And 10 works were selected for Mellow Art Award 2021 in USA.

Since my mom has been fighting against cancers for 13 years, l truly understand and sym-pathy cancer fighters suffering through taking care of my mom. Therefore, l sincerely hope that my artworks are able to convey the mental serenity and encouragement to make them stay stronger, positive and optimistic.