“One day, I mistook a dab of paint for a piece of chocolate and devoured it up. Much to my surprise, I found it tasted heavenly. Naturally, I gobbled more down every day, coating my stomach in layer upon layer of pigment until I threw up a mess resembling a cast of my own innards. The intestines, the stomach, the heart – they were ever so beautiful. I’d truly cultivated myself from the inside out.”

Animo has a degree in Visual Communication Design from Da-Yeh University in Taiwan and an MA from the Fine Arts Department, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic. His work is as diverse as it is prolific. With experience as a still photographer, TV and film art director, animation director, and a professional illustrator, Animo excels at cerebral imagery and piercing prose, and his work is often featured in periodicals and on book covers. He was also featured in the Illustrators Exhibition at the 2019 Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

Published at the tail end of 2019, The Short Elegy is the first-ever exclusive collection of comics by Animo, representing the essence of over three years of intense creative energy. This collection of 3 short stories is the winner of the 2020 BolognaRagazzi Award for Comics – Young Adult. The jury said: “Chen’s wordless, sequential images are the visual equivalent of poems.”

At the end of 2020, Animo Chen served up another astounding visual feast – the Taiwanese-language illustrated poem Love Letter. Love Letter is a beautifully illustrated poem, but it could also be seen as an art book illuminated by text. This beautiful book won another BolognaRagazzi Award of Special Mention for Animo in the 2021 Special Category – Poetry. “Each poem is accompanied by an evocative and striking illustration which does not simply reflect the text but encourages the reader to think and wonder,” the jury said. “The quality of the art work almost takes your breath away.”

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