Sofia Tien

“I remember an interview with a priest who spoke about human relationships, especially the close couple relationships where you know each other perhaps best of all. And yet there is always a distance. He emphasised the importance of showing respect for the mystery of the other – of cherishing what lies deepest in someone else, a core that one should not chase after or try to uncover. This creates a dynamic and a tension, a relationship of repeated give and take.”

In the close encounter between people, Sofia Tien sees a parallel with her own relationship with painting – a relationship that has now lasted for almost a decade. For Tien, painting is an enigmatic process that she understands to some extent, but does not fully want to comprehend. Painting becomes an exchange of secrets between the artist, the material, the conscious and the unconscious. She is amazed and delighted when the paint and the motifs surprise her – an event that contrasts with modern society’s obsession with the scientific, the measurable and the rational.