Yoga Isolation (2022) interprets a photograph taken in June 2020, during an outdoor yoga session in Toronto during the COVID-19 pandemic. Extracting color from the original image, Tan Mu employs monochrome shades to paint the scene, evoking an otherworldly atmosphere reminiscent of vintage science fiction posters. The painting reflects a world continuously shaped by the pandemic, with social situations evolving to fit new circumstances. It portrays the gradual transformation of daily life as people adapt to maintaining physical distance while striving to return to familiar routines. Through this depiction, Tan Mu explores the resilience and adaptation of individuals navigating a profoundly altered reality. The work also prompts a dialogue about the idealized, illusory lifestyle often associated with contemporary Western civilization, offering a nuanced reflection on how collective challenges redefine human connection and routine.

Q: How did your personal experience during the COVID 19 pandemic influence the creation of Yoga Isolation?

Tan Mu: During the pandemic, I experienced a deep sense of isolation and a disruption of everyday rhythms, much like many others around the world. Daily life became fragmented, and human connection was suddenly mediated by distance and restriction. What struck me most was how familiar routines persisted under these altered conditions, carrying both comfort and unease.

Yoga Isolation was inspired by this emotional tension. The photograph that informed the painting shows individuals practicing yoga outdoors, physically separated yet sharing the same space. This mirrored my own experience of the time, a coexistence of collective presence and enforced distance. Painting this scene became a way for me to process these emotions and translate them into a visual language. By reducing the color palette, I aimed to heighten the surreal quality of the moment, where ordinary activities took on a strange and suspended feeling. Yoga, a practice rooted in balance and continuity, became a symbol of resilience within an uncertain and fragmented world.

Q: Yoga is often associated with unity and inner peace. How does placing it within a pandemic context reshape its symbolic meaning in the painting?

Tan Mu: Yoga traditionally represents unity, harmony, and shared energy, but within the context of the pandemic, these meanings were reshaped. In Yoga Isolation, yoga becomes a paradoxical symbol. The practice remains communal in spirit, yet it is performed in isolation, with each individual contained within a clearly defined personal space.

The painting is based on a photograph taken on June 21, 2020, during an outdoor yoga session in Toronto. In this image, the participants are separated, yet visually connected through repetition and rhythm. These spatial boundaries transform yoga into a collective memory of adaptation. The figures are together but apart, embodying a new form of togetherness shaped by restriction. Through this lens, yoga becomes a metaphor for navigating uncertainty, seeking inner balance while remaining physically disconnected from others.

Q: Why did you choose a monochrome palette to reinterpret the original photograph, and how does this decision contribute to the atmosphere of the work?

Tan Mu: The choice of monochrome was deliberate. During the pandemic, I became increasingly sensitive to the emotional weight carried by physical distance and silence. Removing color allowed me to strip the image down to its essential structure and emotional core.

In Yoga Isolation, black and white tones eliminate visual distractions and place greater emphasis on posture, spacing, and repetition. This reduction creates an otherworldly and suspended atmosphere, as if the scene exists outside of ordinary time. The monochrome quality also evokes historical imagery and archival documentation, lending the work both immediacy and distance. It encourages viewers to reflect on this moment not only as a personal memory but as part of a shared historical experience.

Q: How does color, or the absence of color, function across your broader body of work?

Tan Mu: Throughout my practice, monochrome has been an important visual strategy. By removing color, I can focus attention on structure, concept, and atmosphere. In works related to space and technology, such as Peek, DEC’s PDP 10, and Blue Box, black and white reflect the technical and historical origins of the imagery. In pieces drawn from historical events, like Bikini Atoll and Trinity Testing, monochrome reinforces their documentary gravity.

In works addressing isolation and disconnection, including Yoga Isolation, Isolation, and Torus, the absence of color intensifies emotional distance and stillness. It creates an uncanny quality reminiscent of vintage science fiction or archival records. In abstract works such as No Signal and Off, black and white visually translate signal disruption and technological silence.

Across these contexts, monochrome allows me to create a timeless visual language. By reducing sensory input, it opens space for deeper reflection, allowing viewers to engage more directly with the underlying emotional, historical, or conceptual layers of each work.