The artist sees herself as a guardian of history and tradition, but also free and entitled to new artistic interpretations. She collaged fragments of ink calligraphy into acrylic painting and found her unique way of representing ancient forms such as calligraphy, painting and landscape. Here, calligraphy serves as the guardian and adds human energy ('chi') and spirit to the painting.
The composition features the Himalayan Mountains/Tibetan Plateau - tallest and oldest mountains on earth - as the background; and monastery, a man made and seemingly sturdy structure. The architecture however seems fragile compared to the ancient texts, and even more so compared to the age of the mountains. The artist also admires the animal radicals (bu shou) found in bronze ritual bells and spiritual totem poles.
By incorporating Wu Changshuo(1844-1927)'s reinterpretation of a text from the Warring States Period(475–221 BC), the artist alludes to the fact that we are always in conversation with the past. The text “Copy of inscriptions on drum-shaped stone blocks in the Warring States Period” depicts a hunting scene. Copying the masters (lin mo) as practice is part of the Chinese calligraphy tradition. At Wu’s time, he and others sought to understand the origins of writing seen on bronze vessels and stone monuments and to “recapture the antiquity” and authenticity they so much admired. Wu’s favorite writing style, Stone Drum script, was based on ten granite boulders carved during the Qin dynasty, the crucial intermediary from bronze script to small seal script, and between ancient and modern writing. His excellence at calligraphy derived from his expertise in seal carving, an art requiring fine manual dexterity and a keen sense of composition. Nevertheless, his approach also added creativity to the process, avoiding imitation by mixing modern gestures with earlier styles.
Based on a drawing done in He Zuo, Loo expresses the powerful energy she felt while realizing our brief existence on earth via the backdrop of the Tibetan Plateau mountain range and ancient Chinese characters.