The 2024 Sovereign Asian Art Prize

Sameen Agha (b.1992, Pakistan) holds a BA in painting from National College of Arts, Lahore (2016). Her practice, which she refers to as a ‘catalyst of emotions’, is deep-rooted in her journey as a human, including how she reacts, reflects, and resolves upon the fragility of her place in the world. Agha uses her works, which contain elements of both melancholy and hope, to build self-understanding, each piece an effort to resolve a certain emotion or thought. In A Home is A Terrible Place to Love, Agha combines a natural material with a symbolic allusion to a home. Drawing from a collective well of associations, she explores the emotions at the core of interpersonal and political tensions. The use of a specific red marble gives a sense of skin, flesh, clotted blood, and bruises. The marble is both hard yet brittle, playing with the idea of a home which in its own materiality is quite strong as a structure but very fragile in its essence as a domestic space. Merging the weight of the past with the pulse of the present, the work reflects on how traumatising events both disable and enable the ability to challenge political forces on personal and collective scales.

Agha’s work, which has received international attention, will be recognised with two solo exhibitions, at Indigo+Madder, London (June 2024) and Micki Meng, New York (2025). Previous exhibitions include Eclectic Mix 3.0, Sanat Initiative, (2023); Evocations, O Art Space, Lahore, (2022) and Flower of A Blue Flame, Canvas Gallery, Karachi, (2021). Agha is currently represented by Indigo+Madder.

Veronica Peralejo (b.1989, Philippines) holds a BFA Painting from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, Diliman (2010). Through her multidisciplinary practice, she explores the ways in which the poetic nature of the universe shows up in everyday life. All You Holy Monks and Hermits is a line adapted from the Litany of the Dead, or Litany of the Saints, a type of catholic prayer which typically includes repetitious phrases or movements. With this artwork, Peralejo tackles the processing of collective anxieties during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. The artist’s personal experience led her to explore spirituality as a coping mechanism. In turn, she now uses sculptures asway to invite viewers to explore their personal faith, by creating nonspecific imaginary places for meditation and contemplation. The piece is composed of concrete cubes with various cavities, originally intended as incense holders. This is Peralejo’s attempt at visualising the abstract nature of rituals, cleaning spaces, and clearing minds while using smoke as it moves through the concrete’s spatial crevices, an evanescent element gently carving out terrains through time and persistence.

Peralejo’s solo exhibitions Collecting Fragments, MO_Space, Manila (2023) and Pocket Universe, Art Informal (2015) were shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards. Her work was presented by Vinyl-on-Vinyl Gallery at Art Central Hong Kong (2018) and Art Informal Gallery and Finale Art File at Art Fair Philippines (2018). She is a founding member of the Visual Arts Helping Hands Foundation (2017).

Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev (b.1959, Kazakhstan) are an artistic duo who have been working together since the1990s, having studied at the Kazakhstan State Institute of Theatre and Art’s Faculty of Monumental and Decorative Painting, and Faculty of Monumental Sculpture, respectively. Their use of different genres and techniques results in multi-layered and often ironic works, focusing on post-Soviet realities of constant change, disorientation, and their effects on everyday life. The artists compile a precise record of the ephemeral and quotidian details of daily life that are often overlooked and not exactly photogenic. They do so in series, sorting images according to their typology. While seemingly insignificant, these details are integral to the creation of the new symbols of power, serving as poignant social metaphors. The pair engages deeply with the environment they live in, examining its socio-cultural underlining, using a light and humorous approach. The text in this artwork, as a cultural sign, fits into the landscape of wild nature. The artists show here a metaphor for the fragility of human civilisation. The word Anthropocene melts in the sun along with the icefloe. Likewise, human civilisation can disappear under the influence of many factors, including its own mistakes.

The work of Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev has achieved international acclaim, having been included in VIVA ARTE VIVA, Giardini pavilion, 57thVeniceBiennale (2017) and Art from Central Asia: A Contemporary Archive, Central Asia pavilion, 51st Venice Biennale (2005); as well as The Artist Is Asleep, A. Kasteev Museum of Arts, Almaty, (2015). Theirs was recognised amongst the top five artworks shown at Art Dubai (2018). Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev are represented by Aspan Gallery.

Sinta Tantra (B.1979, New York) holds a BA in Fine Art from UCL (2003) and a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2006). Known for her fascination with colour and composition, Tantra’s work is an experiment in scale and dimension, a hybrid of pop and formalism, an exploration of identity and aesthetics. Her decade of work in the public realm has produced distinct colour abstractions which enliven and transform the built environment. Her work occupies the space between painting and architecture, striking a fine balance between two-dimensional and three-dimensional, decorative and functional, public and private. Themes within Tantra’s practice include the slippage between pictorial and physical space, of turning something ‘inside out’, and how we as bodies become submerged in surface and structure. Painted in tempera with delicate touches of gold leaf, Bird of Paradise (Night) is a bold painting with a rich tropical palette. A departure from Tantra’s compositions of minimalist rectilinear forms, the organic, amorphous white figure at the centre of the painting suggests the silhouette of a bird. While it is not indigenous to Bali, the artist sees this beautiful creature as a metaphor for her identity. Since it was sold and traded in the 16th century, the bird of paradise came to represent colonialism and its far reaching and devastating effects.

Tantra’s exhibitions include Kiwari, Tumurun Museum, Surakarta (2023); Tirta Tawar, Public Art Commission, Art Jakarta Gardens, ISA Gallery, Jakarta (2023); The Grand Tour, Public Art Commission, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (2020); and Bright Dawn, Public Commission atKarachi, Biennale, Karachi (2019). Shewas awarded the Bridget Riley Drawing Fellowship at the British School, Rome, (2017). Tantra is represented by ISA Art Gallery (Asia) and Kristin Hjellegjerde (Europe, UK and USA)

Ivy Ma King Chu (b.1973, Hong Kong) holds a MA in Feminist Theory and Visual art from University of Leeds (2002). Characterised by quietness and stillness, Ma’s work is a philosophical reflection on nature and history. Looking, collecting, drawing, and thinking, she works her way through history to find the human thread running through everything. The objects she collects, the images she selects, and the occasional photographs and videos she produces all strike a similar chord, one that is at once uncanny, disturbing, and beautiful. Bird of Shape: Scrap Pad No.001 – 070 charts Ma’s experimentation with abstraction and the marginality of everyday materials. Since July 2021, she has led the life of a traveller, visiting many cities, regions, and countries around the world. Finding herself with the constrained resources of someone constantly on the move, she instinctively became interested in and began to photograph birds in the sky. Created over a period of three years, from 2021 to 2023, the series ‘Bird of Shape’ begins with a semi-realistic scene of the rearranged birds and landscapes cut out from Ivy’s photographs. She showcases them as a perception of these ever-changing landscapes into a new abstract visual order. The work can be interpretated as the diary of a wanderer who encounters deeply personal experiences.

Ma’s work has been recognised with numerous solo exhibitions, including Think of Wind, Touch Gallery, Hong Kong (2021); Poems, days, death, Lumenvisum, Hong Kong (2020); As Time Folds, Art and Culture Outreach, Hong Kong (2018); Last Year, Gallery Exit, Hong Kong (2015) and Numbers Standing Still, Gallery Exit, Hong Kong (2012)

Aziza Shadenova’s (b. 1989, Uzbekistan) multidisciplinary work explores painting, moving image and installation. She reflects on her cultural upbringing during the turbulence of the post-Soviet period while examining global issues such as crises in identity and the crossroads between Central Asian traditions and westernisation. Influenced by twentieth century avant-garde and the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’, Shadenova defines her practice as a ‘visual absurdist poetry’, the majority of which is based around ‘humour and absurdism involved in dysfunctional mental states, immigration, and perception of life.’ In Cotton Star, sculptural cotton collars are arranged over a painting in the formation similar to the stars frequently seen in Islamic art and observed throughout the architecture of Uzbekistan. The collars merge with the silhouettes of hands and faces to form a bas-relief on the canvas. Shadenova associates’ collars with the state of being organised, skilled and ready to work. Women in Uzbekistan, as well as many other countries in Central Asia, became more independent skilled workers during the Soviet period. The Soviet era accelerated the emancipation of women, but hardly for the sake of women and rather for the sake of extra hands to be used for communal work. In this instance, Shadenova is focusing on cotton pickers.

Exhibitions include Thinking Historically in the Present, Sharjah Biennial 15, Sharjah, UAE, (2023); and Clouds & Power, MILL6CHAT, Hong Kong, (2023). Shadenova’s work is also featured in the publication Punk Orientalism: The Art of Rebellion by Sara Raza (2022) and was selected for inclusion in Poetics & Politics at the Central Asian Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale, Italy (2013).

Chiang Kai-Chun (b.1983, Taiwan) holds a BA in Fine Art from Taipei National University of the Arts and a MA in Fine Arts from École Nationale Supérieure d’Art Paris-Cergy, France (2013). His mastery of mosaic art spans training in both Paris and Jordan. In Cypress Boulevard, the day unfolds gracefully, enticing the viewer to embark on a walk along a leisurely promenade. The mosaic, which draws inspiration from the idyllic Taiwanese countryside, is crafted with technique reminiscent of French pointillism. Chiang embeds stones in natural gravel, employing them as paintbrushes to delicately depict a serene and nuanced landscape. The resulting tableau offers a glimpse into an unhurried life. The rear panel of the mosaic artwork, constructed from stainless steel, ensures durability while allowing for versatile display options, be it within indoor spaces or enhancing the aesthetic appeal of outdoor parks and gardens. Chaing will also present the buyer with a watercolour sketch, affording a unique opportunity to witness both mosaic and watercolour techniques concurrently, showcasing the artist’s creative process as it evolves from paper to the transformation of stone.

Chiang’s work can be found in numerous institutions, including the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Hong-gah Museum, Cité de l’architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris, Le Fresnoy Art Centre, and Today Art Museum, Beijing. Solo exhibitions include a forthcoming show at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2024); Fragmentation of Historical Perspectives, Taipei Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, (2022); and Third Person Traveler, Kuan-Du Fine Arts Museum, Taipei (2016). Chiang is currently represented by Liang Gallery.

Kim Hyunsoo (b. 1975, South Korea) holds a BFA in Painting from Ewha Womans University, Seoul (1999). Through her work, Kim makes various attempts to challenge dichotomous thinking and construct a sculptural language using the concept of play. Through paintings and multimedia object pieces using plant remnants collected from her surroundings, she aspires to capture the delightful aesthetics of Korea, engaging audiences and generating discourse by exhibiting in alternative spaces, as well as commercial galleries. Thanks to her father, a soldier, Kim spent her early years in the mountains near a military base. Through an intimate connection she felt with nature, she remembers it as a playful place. On a scorching summer day, the back hill would echo with the deafening chirping of insects, transforming it into a fantastic playground. She approaches natural scenes such as this with an open sensibility, treating everything she encounters as a subject of play. The figures she draws are creations born through this interaction with nature and imagination. The theme of play represents her romantic solution to the irrationalities of society. It is the most apolitical act, uniting opposing entities as one. In ‘Dangerous play Buzzing’, both the weapons, symbolising the violence of ideology, and the currency, representing capitalism, lose their original functions.

Kim has participated in eight solo exhibitions as well as numerous group exhibitions, including Dangerous Play-Homoludens, Placemak Seoul, (2023); Playing on the border, Kum-Ho Museum, Seoul, (2019); Dangerous Play, K.O.N.G Gallery, Seoul, (2017); Upcoming Scenery, The rock culture Gallery, Jeju (2021); and Chicago Art Fair; Chicago, (2007).

Noormah Jamal (b.1992, Pakistan) holds a BA in Painting from The National College of Arts Lahore (2016) and MA in Painting from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (2023). At the core of her artistic practice, which spans painting, drawing, and ceramics, lies a deep exploration of the personal baggage that we carry and the influence of personal experiences on individuals. Drawing inspiration from the oral history of her people and memories from her childhood, her artistic language delves into unspoken emotions and stories that often go untold or are silenced. Through deliberate use of symbolism and vibrant colours, she weaves narratives that are both whimsical and emotionally evocative, capturing the intricate and contradictory nature of human existence. Did the seed grow? speaks to themes of loss and displacement. The facial expressions of the figures are subtle, and a heavy use of symbolism drives the narrative. The viewer needs to decode the scene, as the figures are already very much aware of the situation they are in. The painting is an amalgamation of elements from Mughal miniature painting and the drawings Jamal would create as a child. The brushstrokes mimic a woodcut, the hand gestures very apparent, instilling a sense of urgency to work.

Jamal’s work has been exhibited internationally and she has been presented with the Pratt Circle Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, Pratt Institute (2023); and the Imran Mir Art Prize (2019). She was accepted as a studio member at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (2023) and is currently a resident at The Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York (2024).

Bouie Choi (b.1987, Hong Kong) holds a BA and MA in Fine Art from Chinese University of Hong Kong (2009) and Chelsea College of Art and Design (2012), respectively. Capturing the urban absurdity and threads of identity that connect humanity, Choi navigates between Eastern and Western approaches through wooden paintings with delicate brushwork and flowing pigments. If a painting manifests infinite borrowed space and time, Choi attempts to negotiate the liminal space between the tangible and intangible, describable, and indescribable realities, bringing a glimmer of hope with the evocative power of urban imagery. dimpled is crafted from reclaimed teak flooring sourced from a century-old villa in Southern Hong Kong. Wood is an organic medium, infused with the cadence of the woodland and the passage of time. Its imperfect holes or ‘dimples’, now preserved as a key feature of the painting, are traces of human livelihood and hold a significant emotion about the land and our city. Through a process of repetitive pouring, sanding, and washing, Choi gives form to a momentous scene of a pursuer seeking shelter against an imposing backdrop – a wounded wild boar strives to reach the mountain, lit by filtered light from small holes in a milky sky.

Choi’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo presentations We stay up late to behold the beauty of the stars, PF25, Switzerland (2023); Crossing the nights Filling the lines, Grotto SKW, Hong Kong (2023); and borrowed space_borrowed time, Grotto Fine Art, Hong Kong (2020) and was shown at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2024 and 2023. Choi is currently represented by Grotto Fine Art.

Yip Kin Bon (b. 1989, Hong Kong) holds a BA from the Academy of Visual Arts of the Hong Kong Baptist University (2013). As mixed media artist, he uses a variety of approaches that include collecting, reading, sorting, and integrating, often presented in forms of collage. He rearranges the context of incidents, objects, and time to reflect the absurdity of this world. The title of this work, Four legs good, two legs better, is a reference to George Orwell’s allegorical novella Animal Farm. Through an assemblage of images of local animals collected from Hong Kong newspapers throughout 2017-2022, the artist tells a story of the animals’ persecution by humans. Until one day, the animals began to hold a conference…

Yip’s artworks have been shown exhibitions around the world, including Overriding the Light of Day, WMA space, Hong Kong (2023); Sea Breeze, Jogja Biennale, Indonesia (2019); No Cause For Alarm, La MaMa Galleria, New York, (2016) and Almost black, the white terror; Almost white, the black humour, 1a space, Hong Kong (2014). His work is held in the collection of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

Billy H.C. Kwok (b.1989, Hong Kong) holds a BA in Media and Communications from City University of Hong Kong (2013). Kwok tells stories through photography, the images he makes revealing rapid shifts in the geopolitical relationships and various forms of power structures present in China and its neighbouring regions. Geolocation 404 depicts a series of photographs and documents representing various aspects of Yu Lai Wai-ling’s daily struggle for answers in relation to her son, Yu Man-hon, a teenager who disappeared at the Lo Wu border in 2000. Polaroids of disabled children wandering the streets, taken by Yu Lai Tai-ling, are pinned to a map with their locations matched to leads connected to her search in Shenzhen. She has since viewed thousands of cases in other provinces as far away as Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, and Hunan. Based on a relationship of trust established with Ms.Yu, Kwok captures an intimate scene of her household alongside an image of present-day Shenzhen. Throughout her search, hundreds of demands for ransom and rewards have arrived as fraudulent letters and anonymous phone calls.

Kwok is a multi-award-winning photographer and Magnum Foundation Fellowship recipient, whose work has been featured in The New York Times, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, Libération, and The Wall Street Journal, amongst other publications. Exhibitions include Signals…瞬息: signals…here and there, Para Site, Hong Kong (2023); Landskrona Foto Festival, Sweden (2022); and Foam Talent 2021, Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, (2021)

Lee Jo-Mei (b.1985 Taiwan) holds a MA and BA in Fine Art from National Taiwan University of the Arts (2011, 2007). Her practice is mainly based on sketches, painting, and the transformation from two-dimensional to three-dimensional sculptures. She looks to depict how we gaze on the texture of objects throughout the everyday experience to explore the sense of memory’s own landscape. Since 2015, Lee has focused on the exploration of nature and materials. She loves observing plants, observing any mysterious notches or small cuts to perceive a plant’s sense of time from her own micro view. In this way, her artworks are presented with a particular poetic lyric. The Landscape Remains series focuses on the Royal Palm Tree, an introduced species constituting the everyday landscape in Taiwan. The work speaks to the early twentieth century when the Japanese colonial government mass-planted this Hawaiian native species in Taiwan to elicit an exotic flair. Lee combines paper craft and sketching to create this hybrid structure that resides between a two-dimensional sketch and a three-dimensional specimen, evoking a bizarre, alienated context through delicate details, and echoing the shadows of the empire from the past that still linger on in Taiwan today.

Lee Jo-Mei’s artwork has been exhibited at Art Taipei, Taipei World Trade Center (2023); The Lithe Return-Lee, Double Square Gallery, Taipei (2023); Healing, A Methodology, Guandu International Nature Art Festival, Taipei (2022); Variation, Mind Set Art Center, Taipei (2022); and The Poetic Realm, Yuhsiu Museum, Nantou (2021).

Kanchana Gupta (b.1974, Singapore) holds a MA in Fine Art from LASALLE College of Arts, Singapore and Goldsmiths University of London (2016). Gupta’s practice yokes materiality with process and this is both the impetus and structure behind most of her works. Using a combination of studio and industrial processes, she manipulates socially loaded materials like vermillion powder, henna, and sandalwood alongside oil paint, canvas, and construction materials such as jute and tarpaulin, irreversibly altering their properties and contexts. Her fascination with the materiality of paint has seen her investigate the physicality of the medium in two-dimensional works, mixed media, and sculptural installations. ‘Open and Close’ explores the intricate relationship between lace and gender identity as well as the gender politics surrounding its emergence as a fabric that eroticises the female form. Its construction, which involves twisted and knotted threads, has remained unchanged since the 16th century. The oil paint skins used in the work show traces of the lace without the presence of the fabric itself. Gupta’s artistic interests centre around the evocative and powerful interplay of lace patterns to captivate and confront the audience, evoking both decorative and uncomfortable sensations on a sensual and visceral level.

Gupta’s work has garnered international recognition, being exhibited at ARTSG, Sullivan+Strumpf, (2023); FOLDEDPIERCED STRETCHED, Sullivan+Strumpf, Singapore (2022); While She Quivers, Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film, Singapore, (2022) and The Sceneriesand Portraits of an Era – Featuring the AsiaCollection of Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Fukutake House Asian Gallery, Shodoshima (2019). Gupta is currently represented by Sullivan+Strumpf.

Rocky Cajigan (b.1988, Philippines) is a multimedia artist working in painting, installation, and assemblage to explore material culture, indigeneity, and museology. His work is focused on questions of identity, the future, and the transitioning and decolonisation of indigenous cultures. What does it mean to be indigenous now? How do centres of power grow from a de-centering project, realised for centres themselves? Cajigan constantly re imagines his personal history as part of an indigenous community. He examines the privileges, dangers, and insecurities it holds in the formation of an identity in a place and present where decolonisation is often co-opted by capital experienced as hegemony, finance, and center. Pendulum Redux is a concession to the power of the visceral – a response to material culture and its origin community, its people, as a single unit. Focus is placed on the treatment of people as objects or people as indistinguishable from their personal effects. A link is drawn between the objectification of people and their bodies and the treatment of objects as signifiers of people, as in the curatorial history of ethnographic museums that protect and launder this collective violence.

Cajigan’s work has been exhibited internationally, most notably at Place of Origin, Drawing Room Contemporary Art, Makati (2023) and the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane, (2022). He was awarded an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, New York, (2023); the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Thirteen Artist Award (2021) and the Fernando Zobel Prize for Visual Art by the Ateneo Art Awards (2016)

Chan Ka Kiu (b.1995, Canada) holds a MFA from the City University of Hong Kong (2021) and a BA in Fine Art, Chinese University of Hong Kong (2017). Through her practice, Chans explores intangible and bizarre aspects of everyday life, portraying scenarios both familiar and displaced as playful puns and honest confessions. Her work, which spans installation, photography and performance, balances humour and pathos, leaving a lingering aftertaste that is both bitter and sweet. In still imagery, a sunrise and sunset can only be differentiated by the flash of green light that appears at the final moment of dusk. Please is composed of venetian blinds overlaid atop a lightbox depicting a sunset with the words ‘Linger a little longer’. Crafted in the dimensions of a domestic TV screen, the artwork evokes both the experience of looking out a window and watching television. Yet it is neither; it is an ending in suspense, forever fleeting in a single frame. The image is the last of a series of three in which the preceding frames do not exist. There is no start or middle, as only endings are certain. As spectators, how do we prolong the inevitable? We can plead, “Please, linger a little longer.” Or perhaps we bask in the moment of bittersweetness that arises just before sunset.

Chan’s exhibitions include Late to the Party, DE SARTHE, Hong Kong (2023); Darling, Don’t Come So Fast, Para Site, Art Basel Hong Kong (2019); Hong Kong Gaze, Videoex, Switzerland (2023); Very Natural Actions, JC Contemporary Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2019); and A Tree Fell in the Forest, and No One’s There, Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2018). Chan is currently represented by DE SARTHE.

Demet (b.1971, Philippines) is a multi-disciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture, digital art, and photography. In PPE, Paint Palette Emulation, Demet employs the techniques of hyper realism and trompe l’oeil, the optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. With a composition depicting a collage of cut and torn images from his personal life as a designer and contemporary artist, combined with details of his oil painting palette, Demet invites the viewer to draw closer, inspect each layer of the work, and examine parallels with their own life experiences.

Recent solo exhibitions include An Extra Over the Familiar, Boston Gallery, Quezon City (2023); Rhyme and Reason! 8rooms Creative Space, Makati City (2023); and Serigraphos Pinto Art Museum, Antipolo (2022). Demet’s work was featured in Philippine Social Realists, published by Erehwon ArtWorld (2019); Asian Art News Magazine (2011); and shown at ArtMoments Jakarta (2023); and the Busan Biennale, Busan (2004).

Michelle Fung (b.1982, Hong Kong) holds a BA in Fine Arts from University of British Columbia (2005) and MA in visual arts from Hong Kong Baptist University (2015). In 2015, she embarked on a lifelong project to spin a fantastical futuristic world out of pigments, words, and images. This ecotopian, dystopian world, ‘The World of 2084’, comprises five imaginary nations whose narratives weave together into one grand story that teases out the nuances in our understanding of the Anthropocene. Working across different media, Fung creates highly detailed figurative works that are surreal, allegoric, and anthropomorphic. Red Bean Stalk depicts ‘Polluta’, an ecotopian artist colony that resides in The World of 2084. Conceptually, this work depicts the only portal to Polluta. Two important animals inhabit this world – a fire-breathing dragon that transforms corpses into fertiliser and a flying elephant that transports everything. Red beans are typically found on a beanstalk but here they grow on trees, throwing the existence of this portal into question. The techniques used in this piece, Fung’s first original wood carving of this scale, are the accumulation of her work in drawing and printmaking over the past two decades. The work pays tributes to these two ‘lesser’ media in contemporary art, while presented as an original painting.

Fung’s recent exhibitions include Hong Kong Polluta, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong, (2023); Light Play. 3D and New Media Art, Ink Asia, Hong Kong, (2023); and Women at the End of the World, Art Basel Hong Kong(2023). She has just been recognised as a Semi-Finalist at The 98th Annual International Competition of The Print Center, Philadelphia (2024).

Doris Chui Suet Wai (b.1997, Hong Kong) holds a BA in Fine Art from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2022). Her work examines the alienation of urban dwellers and their delicate emotions through cartoon characters and surreal spatial scenes. Vibrant colours are used to
explore themes of solitude and self reflection, delving into the artist’s personal emotions and experiences. The intentionally weakened features and subtly twisted postures of her characters represent the loneliness and repression experienced by individuals in contemporary society.
Silent Sparks portrays a figure lying peacefully against a backdrop of sparks. Sparks can originate from the tails of fireworks, representing their volatile essence, or from battle fires, as remnants of warfare. The scene therefore hovers between one of celebration or of imminent danger,
much like the unpredictable nature of life’s experiences. In this work, Chui considers the impotence of humans and their inability to fully exert control or manipulate outcomes, whether under conditions of pure elation or of peril. She seeks to emphasise the universal human condition of
helplessness, irrespective of the situations encountered.

Chui was awarded the Diana Li Award in Fine Arts, (2022); Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Creation Award, (2022) and the Mr. Kevin Chan Fine
Arts Scholarship, (2022). Recent exhibitions include Women’s Freestyle, SC Gallery, Hong Kong (2023) and Where Great Minds Shine (CUHK 60th
Anniversary Alumni Art Exhibition), Arts Pavilion West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong (2023). Chui is currently represented by SC Gallery

Mark Chung (b.1990, Auckland) holds a BA in Visual Arts from Hong Kong Baptist University (2014). Living and working between Hong Kong and Amsterdam, he is currently studying MA Fine Arts at Sanberg Insitute, Netherlands. He describes his works as ‘experiences, composed with indefinite mediums, scrutinising different power structures, manoeuvring disparate stratums of system and belief clumsily and tactlessly, reflecting the havoc of everyday experience’. Chung’s artist statement reads, “a kaleidoscope of colours, stinging and aggravating the eyes; prosperity begets itself ceaselessly and rapidly like an epileptic episode. We course through systems and beliefs constituted through aggregates of different emotions and artificial objects, in a life flooded with sensation – inane to the point of suffocation”. Chung created Stitches #02, Good Companion by weaving together multiple drone images of a 50-meter-tall mural on the façade of an old Hong Kong factory found on the margins of the city. Trapped in a crack between buildings, this façade of fragmented colours has slowly disintegrated over time. Eroded by tropical rainstorms and burned by the sun, an advertisement from an obsolescent brand and era fades into abstraction, the signify image bleached into an anachronism.

Chung’s work has been exhibited internationally, most notably at Splinter, Rossi & Rossi Gallery, Hong Kong, (2023); Dead End, ACO, Hong 2023) an Æthereal, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, (2021). He received special recognition for media arts at IFVA Festival, Hong Kong (2023); and has been shortlisted for the Huayu Youth Award (2021).

Affan Baghpati (b.1991, Pakistan) holds a BFA from IVSAA, Karachi (2015) and an MA in Art and Design Studies, Lahore (2018). Affan works with items from different cultures to understand the gaps and disconnections of the present time. Object-making techniques and borrowed imagery are part of the artist’s studio practice. Surat Khana comprises hand-sawn motifs on a copper plate – essential references to violence in media, religion, and history – repositioned to change their context. Precious and semi-precious gemstones are nestled within the metal, adding hues of significant colours. Amongst the motifs are silhouettes from illustrations in the Akbar-Nama, a historical chronicle written during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar in the 16th century. In the text, Akbar commands his brother Adham Khan be thrown from a height – his falling figure is visible in the centre of the piece. The thrower then becomes the catcher, who aims to catch whatever he can get hold of, like a street scavenger. Also depicted is the common swift, or ‘ababeel’, a bird with extraordinary attributes and religious connotations to many Ibrahimic religions, and a variety of gestures which explore and document the present-day turmoil against humanity.

Baghpati’s work has been exhibited internationally, most notably in Anatomy of a Horny Heart, Aicon Contemporary, New York (2021); Alternative Imaginary, ‘I try to call you but I can’t find the telephone’, Koel gallery Karachi, Pakistan (2019); India Art Fair2020, 2022 and 2023, (with Aicon Contemporary, New York), Delhi; Dubai Expo, Pakistan Pavilion, Dubai, (2021-2022); and City, sarota, and Surmadani, O-Art Space, Lahore (2022).

SEOSY (b.1972, South Korea) holds a Ph.D. in Formative Arts and an MAand BA in Fine Arts from Dongduck Woman’s University. Through her work, she seeks to visually embody the root of human thoughts such as “who am I?” and “where do we come from and where are we going?” The formative language of her work begins with the idea of 空 or emptiness, an idea fundamental to Eastern philosophy. In particular, the artist follows the idiom 色卽是空 空卽是色.When translated through the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, it reads “form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form.” She believes all things in the world are interconnected by one vein. The canvas of The Labyrinth of Origin is filled to the brim with tiny cracks reminiscent of the ice cracks found in porcelain glaze, or neurons that connect the senses throughout the body. A visual representation of the ‘labyrinth of origins’, they invite the viewer into a chaos of the artist’s own making. SEOSY makes use of gold leaf as her primary expressive technique, a material considered as a visualisation of the ‘ideal’. Drawing on the expertise learned during her doctoral studies, the artist presents a level of technical perfection as complete as the composition itself.

SEOSY is an esteemed and well-established artist, whose exhibitions have included My Treasure_Timelessness,Scott & Jae Gallery, Beverly Hills (2023); Garden of Treasure, HanKuK Art Museum, Gyeonggi (2023); The Dignity of the Imperial Household, Art Gate Gallery, New York, (2007); and Seo SooYoung, Galerie Visconti, Paris (2000).

Sanaz Haeri (b.1980, Iran) is a multimedia artist who draws inspiration from old Iranian paintings and modern-day social and civic concerns. Her Demons series of works are characterised by her ‘creatures’, which began as drawings of dogs as examples of repressed animals, and whose bodies metamorphosised over time to include parts of other beings. Removed from their context, she traps them inside empty cages, bound by limiting lines. She likens their situation to that of individuals today’s society, in which ‘norms’ are established to provide a sense of security but inevitably end up transforming us. By accepting odd and sometimes grotesque behaviours not our own, we realise that we have become an odd being beyond our own recognition. When researching the use of the demon motif throughout art history and across cultures, Haeri found herself drawn to its diversity across different time periods. In Iranian art, the image of a ‘Ghoul/D’iv’ has changed significantly in accordance with the changing political and social life of Iranians. To create the demon pictured in The looking glass – 2020, Haeri drew influence from figures in the manuscripts of the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp and the Mantiq altair and presented them through a contemporary lens. The work makes use of traditional materials, the resulting textures representing the emotional experiences of the subject.

Haeri’s work has been shown internationally at Women, Life, Freedom, Foundation Mirador del Jucar, Albacete (2023), the Iranian Artist’s Forum, Iran,(2022); and CityScape Community ArtSpace, Vancouver (2021). She was a nominated artist of the International Human Rights Art Festival (IRHAF),New York (2023). Haeri is currently represented by E1 gallery Tehran and Iranian Artists Forum

Dinar Sultana Putul (b.1989, Bangladesh) holds a BA and MA in painting from Sayajiras University, Gujarata, India (2011, 2017). Fascinated by the ephemerality of nature, Dinar aims to translate its materiality into her work, transforming materials including pulped newspaper, raw clay, bamboo and terracotta using hand-worked processes and extracting colours, or the ‘blood of nature’ as she terms it, from flowers, bark, seed, and leaves. Dinar has a strong interest in cosmology and imaginative cartography, believing it to be inherently connected with pressing concerns around income and resource inequality. With The recycle of materialistic perspective, she suggests that humanity’s trajectory is adrift, as we forge ahead without providing adequate care for our planet. The work advocates for a collective ‘rebalancing’, a global cooperation harnessing human intelligence and the earth’s resources in a way that allows for an ‘integrated regenerative
system’. Dinar draws inspiration from the utopian vision of American architect and systems theorist Richard
Buckminster Fuller, who developed a system of thought based on the essential unity of the natural world and the use of experiment and intuition as a means of understanding it.

Dinar’s work has been exhibited internationally, most recently being featured at the India Art Fair, Delhi (2024); Asia Now, Paris (2023); and the Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh, (2023). She was shortlisted by Samdani Art Foundation for the Samdani Art Award at Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2023); and recognised in the National Sculpture Exhibition, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (2022). Dinar is currently represented by Iram Art Gallery.

Sim Chi Yin (b.1978, Singapore) is currently completing a PhD at King’s College London (2024). Her research-based practice, which spans photography, film, installation, performance, and book-making, uses artistic and archival interventions to contest and complicate historiographies and colonial narratives. Suitcase is a series of photographic interventions using Magic Lantern Slides from the late 1800s and early 1900s, once colonial pedagogical tools. Sim exhibits these altered slides on replicas of antique stands used toretouch glass negatives. She uses the slides, which depict Southeast Asian landscapes through a colonial gaze, as sites of time travel to explore trans generational inheritance and memory. She alters their meaning by grafting her paternal grandfather – a political activist arrested by the British and executed for being a Socialist in the anti-colonial war in Malaya – and her toddler son into the sites, constructing a re-imagined archive. The lineage between Sim’s child and grandfather is enacted in this highly constructed – if not already fabulist – visual space of colonial projection.

Sim is exhibiting in the main show at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) and was commissioned the Nobel Peace Prize photographer for 2017. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including Shifting Sands in Re/Sisters, Barbican, London, (2023); Shifting Sands, in Indigo Waves, Gropius Bau, Berlin, (2023); One Day We’ll Understand, Istanbul Biennale, (2022) and One Day We’ll Understand, Zilberman Gallery Berlin, (2021). Her work is in the collections of Harvard Art Museums, The J. Paul Getty Museum, M+ Hong Kong, Singapore Art Museum, and the National Museum Singapore. Sim is currently represented by Zilberman Gallery and Hanart TZ Gallery.

Zelin Seah (b.1980, Malaysia) holds a BA in Fine Art from Birmingham City University. His work centres on the concept of maps, exploring the intricate relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit and focusing on how humanity defines and interacts with nature. He deconstructs maps through scouring, tearing, and burning, disintegrating the map’s original purpose while retaining symbolic elements and mirroring nature’s perpetual transformation, always alive and never the same. This work is from the series 地皮 or ‘Skin of Land’. Traditionally referencing commercially valuable sites in Chinese, it now symbolises depleted natural resources, akin to an animal hunted for its skin. To craft this piece, Seah has cut, reorganised, burned, and washed maps, much like a predator dissecting prey. The result is a ‘skin’ riddled with holes resembling city lights or trapping nets ensnared by the web of development. This work is a tribute to fourteen monitor lizards found dead in the artist’s community’s drainage channels, due to unnoticed cable falling into the ditch, revealing human negligence. His home in the ULU LANGAT region borders pristine forests, sharing space with diverse natural species. The title of the work, U_U _A_ _A_, represents the mourning sounds of the ULU LANGAT beasts amid the new development – an East Coast Rail Link project running through the forest.

In 2022, Seah was presented the Grand Prize for the 41st UOB Painting of the Year, Malaysia. His works has been shown at ART SG, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, (2023); Two-Dimensional Man, S.E.A. Focus and Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore, (2022); Prudential Eye Zone, Saatchi Gallery, London, (2014) and AIR Frankfurt Residency, Basis E.V, Frankfurt, (2017). Seah is currently represented by Richard Koh Fine Art.

Atit Sornsongkram (b.1981, Thailand) holds an MA from Kunstakdemie Dusseldorf (2014). Sornsongkram works mainly with photography, manually constructing and then digitally editing his images. He questions and hypothesises the media of photography, playing with the audience’s perception through lighting, duplicating, and rearranging images. He defines his works as a poetry in a visual form. Waterfall is inspired by the artist’s attempt to capture a photograph of a waterfall on his phone. As he stood nearby, the water sprayed onto his phone. Intrigued by this incident, he recreated the scene in his studio. Fascinated by the different ways in which audiences perceive photography, Sornsongkram manipulates the medium, blurring the boundaries between reality and ‘rearranged’ reality.

Sornsongkram’s work has been exhibited internationally, including Black & White, from Dürer to Eliasson, Museum Kunstpalace, Düsseldorf
(2018); MULTIPLE PLANES, Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Bangkok (2018); OBJECTS, HOP Photo Gallery, Bangkok (2021); and Passing a window, I glanced into it, Ver Gallery, Bangkok (2019).

Ho Sin Tung (b. 1986, Hong Kong) holds a BA in Fine Art from Chinese University of Hong Kong (2008). Her multi-disciplinary practice includes
drawing, installation, video, and writing. Navigating through different texts and materials, sometimes fictional and sometimes historical, Ho
encounters failures and sorrows in the human condition that generate a sense of stinging within. Things that haunt her and that escape definition
are transformed in her works through a process of retelling, rewriting, adding, deleting, and inserting footnotes. Parks, sports, night. During several epidemic lockdowns, many people tried to bring sport into their homes, while another group of people chose to bring various indoor sports outdoors. The shadows of people practicing different sports and martial arts in the park are sometimes blended into the scenery and sometimes out of place, reaffirming the park’s charming character of mixed dualities such as private and public, artificial and natural, organic and geometric. Ho, who often suffers from insomnia, has a habit of wandering and observing alone in the park late at night, and thus has witnessed these night activities closely.

Ho is an acclaimed artist whose work is held in several institutions including the collection of M+, Hong Kong. Exhibitions include Post-human Narratives: In the Name of Scientific Witchery, Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, Hong Kong (2022); Swampland, Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong (2020); and Dusty Landscape, Chambers Fine Arts, Hong Kong (2016). She is the founder of ‘Good Night’, a space which adopts sports as a framework for alternative cross-medium cultural practices and is committed to building stronger individuals and communities in Hong Kong.

Ahyun Jeon (b.1995, South Korea) holds a BA in Western painting and furniture design from Sangmyung University and majored in woodworking and furniture at Hongik University’s Graduate School. 雪深山,Mt.seorak 35-35-34 (snowy deep mountain, Mt.seorak 35-35-34) was created through a process of 3D modelling based on a topographic map of Mount Seorak, the highest mountain in the Taebaek mountain range in Gangwon Province, South Korea. The artist produced a mould to generate a concrete replica of the mountain’s form, applying concrete powder to express the rough terrain and the snowy landscape. Pigment was added to the resin to create mist around the mountain peaks. The piece was finished with multiple stages of sanding and polishing.

Ahyun Jeon is an award-winning artist, having been selected for the Cheongju International Craft Competition, Bronze Prize (2023) and Forbes Korea 30 Under 30 (2023). Exhibitions include Moments of Consolation, Print Bakery Hannam Flagship store, Seoul, Korea (2023); Paulownia tree root and peach petals, Mugyewon, Seoul, Korea (2023); and KIAF PLUS, SETEC, Seoul, Korea (2022).