23 August 2023
About Claudia Koh
As a Singaporean painter, Claudia Koh explores the relationship between the beauty of humans and nature in her works. Her works were deeply inspired by renaissance paintings.
Apart from that, she also draws inspiration from her personal interests in fashion, animals, and plants, into her works. After graduating with a diploma in Fine Arts from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) and working for an art gallery, she decided to study at Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA.
One of the works that inspired her was a triptych oil painting on oak panels “The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch”, which depicts the different stages of human life based on a Biblical setting in a chronological order. The painting is seen from left to right: the left representing the beginning in the garden of Eden where God creates the first human couple Adam and Eve, while the right represents Hell as the consequence of humanity’s failure to follow God’s will. Thus, her works were inspired by this painting’s bright colours and atmosphere, yet its dark context.
Mentioning that she wanted to stand out from other painters in her current school in the U.S., she eventually ventured back into her cultural roots as a Peranakan. She talks about the role of women in Peranakan culture based of her own experiences with her family whereby women were viewed as being good housekeepers. From this, I learnt the importance of looking into my past experiences and background to create distinctive works that represents me.
She also talked about her reason of choosing to study Rhode Island School of Design. As the school is located near New York (a city that is rich in the arts), she can easily explore art galleries and museums during the weekends. This allows her to draw more inspiration for her future works as well. I was inspired by her reasoning, and I thought that it was very smart. Perhaps in the near future when I reside in another country for a certain duration (especially during the international placement in London), I would also like to reside somewhere that is either rich in the arts or close to a place that is rich, so that it is very accessible to draw all sorts of inspiration.