interview on illustration.org
Toto is a successful artist from Taiwan who is known for her colorful and surrealistic images of characters and environments. She is very happy and excited to be making new friends and fans outside of Taiwan and has overcome huge obstacles in her life to be where she is now. Diagnosed with a rare disease that eventually causes the patient to lose their vision, she has courageously battled the disease to continue with her life's passion - to make art that inspires people.
Her use of color is done in such a way as to move the eye of the viewer deeper into the piece. Once inside her drawings, viewers will not find a simple black and white meaning; rather, her artwork engages people by allowing them to relate their own interpretations and choices upon the work.
Memory and life are commonly intertwined with symbolic meaning in Toto's images. The reason for this is tied to her own experience with the disease, as she spent a short period living in darkness. During this period, she gained much from embracing sound and music as a means to escape the possibility of never seeing again. When she could draw, she used her memory to choose the colors in the computer programs she was familiar with. Now, with her sight restored she has grown immensely from her struggles. Thus, the rhythm and harmony in her art is comparable to the experience of music.
And now, Toto is happy to be able to share her art with a much broader and engaged audience here in the United States.
