Amy Lo surrealism shapes how the model and actress describes her creative life after nearly three years of wearing masks and a record-hot July in Hong Kong, when familiar streets felt altered by pandemic habits and rising temperatures.
“Surrealism can feel a little contrary, and that is a bit like me.”
With a mixed Hong Kong and Costa Rican background and a tall, striking look, Amy Lo often surprises people with a playful, imaginative mind. She said her contrast of looks and temperament reveals both creative potential and intellectual depth.
The shoot for this story took Surrealism as its theme, and Amy said she is drawn to the movement not because she has seen every work, but because a few pieces lodged in her memory. “The first one that stuck with me was Salvador Dalí’s famous melting clocks in The Persistence of Memory,” Amy said. She went on to study more Surrealist works and to learn how the movement bends expectation without abandoning its own internal logic.
Deeply drawn to Magritte: “What the eye sees is not always the truth”
Amy Lo said she is equally captivated by René Magritte. “If one line sums up Magritte, it is ‘what the eye sees is not always the truth,'” she said, reflecting on how looks and surface impressions can mislead.
She pointed to Magritte paintings such as The False Mirror and Not to Be Reproduced as works that exposed the gap between appearance and reality. “In show business, facts can be dressed up, and people interact behind many masks; Magritte’s images feel especially relevant,” she said.
“Time moves too fast, I want to stretch it indefinitely.”
Beyond painting, Amy Lo surrealism appears in her interest in music, literature, and film. She keeps a notebook of dreams because her subconscious yields vivid scenes that she wants to capture for art.
She described dreams that are absurd in a playful way, such as a cat carrying an elephant or a toothpick swimming. “Once I told a friend about a dream and said I had to make it into a film; I reserve all rights,” she joked. Amy said her dream-film concept is about compressing and expanding a moment, and she tentatively calls it “One Thousandth of a Second.”
On Birdman: “I thought fantasy and acting scenes could be real”
Amy Lo said she is an avid moviegoer and that films are both leisure and education in composition and camera work. One film that resonated with her is Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which she watched after a friend insisted on the recommendation.
“Birdman blends surreal technique with a very real world,” she said. She identified with the lead actor’s sense of professional helplessness and with the moments when emotion pushes a person into unreal fantasies, including scenes in which the character imagines having superpowers.
She admires Frida Kahlo and Jean Cocteau
Amy said the Disney film Coco introduced her to how an artist such as Frida Kahlo can live inside popular culture. “No one expected a real artist to appear inside a cartoon, but Frida’s life and image still influence film and fashion,” she said.
She also recently discovered Jean Cocteau and found a visual kinship with his use of points and lines. “His star imagery and pared back palette feel like the coding state of my own mind,” she said, noting Cocteau’s influence across film and design.
Style and temperament come from within
As a sought after fashion model, Amy said she dresses according to mood, choosing comfort over extremes. “If I feel heavy, I will wear heavier tones; my styling follows how I feel each day,” she said.
She dismissed the idea that poise must be practiced aggressively. “You do not have to manufacture it; if you immerse yourself in culture, a certain presence emerges naturally,” Amy said. She added that connection to an interest gives shape to a person’s sensibility.
Art as a way to rediscover the self
On a recent visit to Tai Kwun (Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage and Arts), Amy said a small exhibition called “Forest Breath” encouraged unexpected conversations with strangers. Sitting beside a child watching an animation about trees, she found herself debating whether trees move or eat, and the exchange reminded her how art prompts new ways of seeing.
Amy said that art, whether painting, music, or film, creates connections that reveal something about the viewer. “That is why I return to Surrealist works; they do not demand a fixed meaning, and in that openness you discover aspects of your temperament and view of the world,” she said.
For readers curious about how imagination and daily life meet, Amy Lo surrealism offers a personal map of creative practice: keep a dream notebook, follow mood in dressing, and let unexpected exhibitions change your perspective.
Credits: Executive Producer: Angus Mok
Producer: Gin
Photography: Feicien Feng
Art Direction and Set Design: yukchiloo
Videography: lai.tsz.chung
Styling: Lois Leung
Makeup: Jenny Shih
Hair: Him Ng from The Attic
Text: Meiji Ray
Wardrobe: Miu Miu, Gucci, Prada, Givenchy, Christian Louboutin, Silentnostalgia
