Imagine walking along in your day-to-day life, tending to your most everyday tasks of grocery shopping and transportation to and from work. Moving with such focus that your surroundings become a haze. Now imagine slowing down to notice.

“I have always been very inspired by public art, especially art in spaces where you are just because you have to. Places like commuting locations and public transport,” says the Swedish artist Sofia Lind. Her most recent collection is inspired by four metro stations in Paris. From the distinct blue tiles at Concorde to the shiny copper at Art et Métiers, each of the four metro stations has been translated with the soft strokes and recognizable motifs of Sofia Lind.

As a former engineer student herself, Sofia Lind admires the huge effort that lies behind the design of subway stations: “For me, to have the opportunity to absorb this: It is like visiting a museum.”

Portrait Of A Place

And the choice of the Paris metro as her muse is no coincidence. It holds a significant memory for Sofia Lind. “It symbolises a certain period in my life. I lived in Paris while I finished my bachelor’s degree. I did not know anyone and honestly had difficulties with the language,” she tells. 

Like most Parisiennes, Sofia Lind travelled with the metro a lot. Being a part of the crowd that rode the metro every morning and every night made her feel like she belonged. 

“It was a relief to be in a place where no one knew me.”

As a natural result, Sofia Lind has spent a lot of time passing through the different metro stations of Paris. And with the new collection of artworks, she has gradually transformed the stations’ colours and atmospheres into portrait paintings.

“My art print Waiting at Art et Métiers is a tribute to the station’s brown and copper colours. The big square pieces of copper on the walls and ceiling are just like the squares in my motif. They give a rounded, flexible and wavy feeling at the same time as they build up volume.”

The four metro stations have been the inspiration behind the colour palettes and shapes of Sofia Lind’s art pieces. However, they have also conveyed a certain feeling. 

Sofia Lind explains: “The deep green tiles around the station name at Place de Clichy are really eye-catching. The tiles are glossy with so many small details. I could look at them for hours. This green colour builds up the print Coffee Alone at Place de Clichy.”

A Work Of Art

From her studio in Stockholm, Sofia Lind works on her art. ‘Work’ being the keyword: “I never expect or wait for inspiration to just come to me,” she says and continues to say that she is in her studio almost every day. “It is not so glamorous nor romantic. Just hard work.”

But working hard is an important part of the Swedish artist’s creative process. The work she puts in every day is what she draws her inspiration from and, she says, it is what gives her the endurance to push the boundaries of her work forward. 

“The craft of painting is what inspires me, and putting my work into context is what gives my work meaning.”

Driven by the craft, creating art is a way of understanding for Sofia Lind. It helps her gain new perspectives: “Like in my piece Blue Stripe at Concorde. At first glance, you may only see the blue letters on the tiles, but if you stand at the far end of the platform and look up, you see that the blue tiles are creating stripes throughout the tunnel,” she says.

“Experiencing, seeing and talking about art… for me, it is a way of being social.”