ArtworxTO Spotlight: Sophia-Paez

Meet ArtworxTO’s Spotlight Emerging Artist, Sophia Paez, a Filipino-Canadian illustrator and character artist whose work tends to explore the folkloric aspect of storytelling, bringing it into a visual context with her character illustrations and designs.

Born and Raised in Manila, Sophia was constantly exposed to local myths and folktales. This, combined with her interest in Western and Japanese animation, built a passion for storytelling and art. Years of amateur middle-school comic books and novels built toward more polished illustrated projects, and she was determined to work toward a definite goal.

Her ongoing project, Bakunawa, is a digital illustration series featuring a vengeful moon goddess who lost her family to a moon-eating serpent.She wishes to strengthen her foundational knowledge of culture and heritage preservation as a backbone for her work. She aims to start an animation studio with a special focus on cultural themes that remain unexplored in mainstream media.