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ARARIO GALLERY SHANGHAI Presents a Group Exhibition: After the Reaction
Poster credit: ARARIO GALLERY SHANGHAI ARARIO GALLERY SHANGHAI presents After the Reaction, a group exhibition by CHEN Xiaozhi (b. 1980), LU Chunsheng (b. 1968), SUN Yiwen (b. 1991), and YAN Heng (b. 1982), which employs “chemistry” as a central metaphor to explore the ongoing effects of technological innovation, social structures, and historical narratives in contemporary life. Here, “chemistry” is not limited to a laboratory discipline but is understood as a mechanism of modernity concerned with transformation, refinement, acceleration, and control: technologies evolve, forms change, yet humanity’s impulse to convert the world into power and resources persists. In this sense, “chemistry” serves as a lens for understanding the structural contradictions of the contemporary world.
CHEN Xiaozhi, 25ml of Energy A, 2024, 24k Gold leaf, glass solvent, old wooden base, antique wood carving leaf holder, 9 x 26.5 x 1 cm CHEN Xiaozhi constructs a contemporary “cabinet of curiosities” through foil, glass, and ancient craftsmanship. Her work does not aim to reproduce history; rather, it activates time in the act of viewing through light, reflection, and accumulation. In CHEN’s practice, what remains invariant is not the historical forms or material traditions themselves, but the very modes through which time is perceived, observed, and refracted—a perceptual structure that continuously operates through light, reflection, and sedimentation.
LU Chunsheng, I want to be a Gentleman (1), 2000, B&W chromogenic print, 77.5 x 64 cm, Edition of 8 (#6/8) LU Chunsheng’s History of Chemistry originates from a photograph of an offshore drilling platform: a massive structure almost entirely exposed above the water, emerging like a foreign object from the sea. In his perspective, the Asia-Pacific region resembles a continuously operating alchemical workshop. Through photography, LU interprets modernization as an ongoing process of alchemy: technologies are constantly updated, narratives are constantly reshaped, yet the desire to convert the world into resources and objects of control remains unaltered. In works such as Hey! Lana and I Want to Be a Gentleman, this logic is translated into arrangements of bodies, spaces, and power: identities are updated, narratives rewritten, yet the ways in which power organizes the body persist.
YAN Heng, Poem Porn – NO.7, 2022-2024, Mixed media, 125 x 125 cm YAN Heng’s painting focuses on structural residues that continue to operate after moments of change have ostensibly concluded. Renewed Continuum draws on the image of the Arhat Rāhula from Manpuku-ji Temple in Kyoto: the chest is opened to reveal a Buddha head within, and the body no longer functions as a complete individual but as a vessel through which meaning is stored, transmitted, and renewed. Grounded in the logic of inheritance, this figure is placed within a system composed of measuring instruments, circuitry, and utilitarian objects. Here, renewal no longer signifies rupture or rebirth, but a managed and maintained process—meanings may be replaced, while the structure itself continues to operate.
Under this premise, YAN’s Poem Porn series, can be understood as the material articulation of the same logic. Oysters belong simultaneously to marine ecology and to global systems of extraction, transportation, and consumption; their natural qualities and industrial logics converge on the surface, forming a material state that is repeatedly processed yet never fully resolved. No longer merely objects of observation, they become nodes within contemporary systems of cleaning, processing, and interpretation.
SUN Yiwen, Out of Control, 2024, Oil on canvas, 150 x 121 cm SUN Yiwen’s paintings position the body in states of imbalance, fall, and torsion, creating a distant resonance with classical depictions of “the fall” in art history. Unlike religious or fate-driven narratives, the bodies in his works are not struck down by divine will but are shaped by institutions, capital, and social structures. While the meaning of the body constantly shifts, the structures that govern it remain unyielding, becoming one of the most direct yet imperceptible manifestations of contemporary social conditions.
This exhibition does not aim to reconstruct history. Rather, by juxtaposing practices across media and generations, it examines structural residues that continue to operate even after profound social, technological, and material transformations. These residues are not historical relics; they are embedded in the present through material forms, bodily orders, and spatial logic, continuously shaping the mechanisms by which reality functions. The exhibition foregrounds the disjunction between surface-level change and deep structural continuity in contemporary life, revealing how such disjunctions are perceived, maintained, and reproduced within everyday experience.
Venue
ARARIO GALLERY SHANGHAI (2F-205, 30 Wen’an Road, Jing’an District)Artists
CHEN Xiaozhi, LU Chunsheng, SUN Yiwen, YAN HengExhibition Dates
16 January – 7 March, 2026Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PMWebsite
https://www.arariogallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/arariogallery_official/Contact
info@arariogallery.com(Text and images courtesy of ARARIO GALLERY SHANGHAI)
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ShanghART Singapore Annexe Presents Immortal Words :: 字基, a Solo Exhibition by Boedi Widjaja
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore Annexe Boedi Widjaja’s solo exhibition “Immortal Words :: 字基” is now on view at ShanghART Singapore Annexe, running through 1 March. The project splices poetry with genetic code, meditating on the diasporic condition.The artist asks: if history is displaced, how might it take up new space through the body? His four-line toponymic poem spatialises as DNA nano-sculptures—line, circle, cube—released through a gachapon machine, with a microfluidic molecular writing process unspooled on video. A living participatory work realized with geneticist Eric Yap, and with the support of NAC Creation Grant, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Institute of Digital Molecular Analytics and Science, NTU Singapore.
Boedi Widjaja (b. 1975, Indonesia; based in Singapore) explores migration through the conceptual frames of house, home and homeland, engaging with space and semiotics. Trained in architecture and design, Boedi works across media—from bio art and performance to experimental photography and architectural installations—often combining scientific phenomena with poetic gesture.
Widjaja received the inaugural QAGOMA and Singapore Art Museum co-commission for his Black–Hut series, presented at the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial (2018-19) and the 6th Singapore Biennale (2019-20). His works have been included in international group shows such as Thailand Biennale: The Open World, Chiang Rai, Thailand (2023); Cladogram: KMA’s 2nd International Juried Biennial, Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2021), in which he was awarded First Prize; MAP1: Waterways, Diaspora Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale (2017); Jerusalem Biennale (2017); Yinchuan Biennale (2016); From east to the Barbican, Barbican, London (2015); Infinity in flux, ArtJog, Indonesia (2015); and Bains Numériques #7, Enghien-les-Bains, France (2012) amongst others. Recent solo exhibitions include Kang Ouw《侠客行》(2022), Esplanade Tunnel, Singapore; Declaration of (2019), Helwaser Gallery, New York; Rivers and lakes Tanah dan air (2018), ShanghART Singapore; and Black—Hut (2016), Singapore Biennale Affiliate Project, ICA Singapore. He was an Artist-in-Residence at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Temenggong Singapore and DRAWinternational France.
Installation view of Immortal Words :: 字基, Courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Annexe Venue
ShanghART Singapore Annexe, 9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artists
Boedi WidjajaExhibition Dates
17 January – 1 March, 2026Gallery Hours
Wednesday – Sunday | 12PM – 6 PMWebsite
https://www.shanghartgallery.com/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghartgallery/Contact
infosg@shanghartgallery.com(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Annexe)
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P21 Presents Unapologetic, a Group Exhibition Featuring Nine Women Artists
P21 presents Unapologetic, a group exhibition featuring nine women artists, as its first exhibition of 2026. The exhibition explores the contemporary female body and emotion, labor and identity through a wide range of media, including painting and sculpture. Drawing from personal experiences and private narratives, the participating artists candidly foreground sensation, play, and self-absorption that have often remained marginal for women.
The posture of the “good” moral subject long demanded of women has fostered an internalization of self-censorship, rendering pleasure, desire, and the expression of excessive emotion objects of sustained suspicion. The works presented in this exhibition move beyond such normative controls, foregrounding forms of female self-indulgence, emotional excess, and repetition that have long been suppressed. Here, women no longer appear as subjects that must be explained or justified; instead, they emerge as beings who position themselves as the source of their own satisfaction. The participating artists resist reducing feminine existence to standards of morality or productivity, instead recalling women as human animals endowed with flesh and sensation. The self-absorption and self-affirmation evident in their works function as sensory practices for affirming life in its entirety, underscoring pleasure and freedom as fundamental forces that sustain existence.
Installation view of Unapologetic, Photo by Yongbaek Lee This critical perspective unfolds gradually through the spatial composition and circulation of the exhibition, beginning the moment one approaches the gallery. From outside the exhibition space, viewers encounter an agitated crowd visible through the glass façade. Created by Shin Min, whose practice has translated emotions of anger, tension, and threat into images that are at once sharp and ironic, the work signals the exhibition’s underlying tone even before entry. Gestures of mandated kindness and solidarity reveal their latent cynicism and fatigue through exaggerated forms and distorted bodies. Along the path toward the entrance, the viewer encounters the back of another sculptural figure, staging the beginning of the exhibition as a carefully composed scene.
Upon entering the gallery, Myung-Joo Kim’s sculptural busts first draw the eye, condensing subdued emotions through material traces that flow down the surface. Along one wall, paintings and three-dimensional works unfold in dense succession. In Monica Kim Garza’s canvases, figures linger in states of idleness—reading books or drinking beverages. Their relaxed postures and rough pictorial surfaces ease visual tension, conveying the sensory experience of bodies fully immersed in their environments. This atmosphere flows seamlessly into the paintings of Sofia Mitsola.
Installation view of Unapologetic, Photo by Yongbaek Lee Works that visualize interiority through repetition and immersion follow. Na Kim constructs a continuum of forms through serially generated portraits, not to designate a specific individual but to build a stream of imagery that exists only within sustained imagination. Wu Jiaru likewise loosens control through painting practices grounded in spontaneity and automatism, treating the act of painting itself as a pathway to liberation. In Eunsae Lee’s works, which confront the viewer with striking intensity even from a distance, vital forces prior to control overflow beyond the picture plane. Anna Jung Seo reconstructs scenes captured in London through literary imagination, transforming the city into a stage where exaggeration and metaphor intersect. On the opposite side of the space, Minjeong An’s work is presented along the wall, reconfiguring her experiences of a postpartum care center following childbirth into signs and structures, translating personal memory into an analytical visual language.
Unapologetic reveals, through diverse media and visual languages, the multilayered processes by which women’s experiences, bodies, emotions, labor, and identities are formed and defined. Casting off the moral standards imposed on women and another form of self-censorship embodied in political correctness, the exhibition revisits the question of the right to fully enjoy and desire one’s given life. It declares that feminine subjects can exist through their own sensations and desires without the approval of others, offering a proposition to affirm life excessively—yet abundantly.
Installation view of Unapologetic, Photo by Yongbaek Lee Venue
66 Hoenamu-ro, Yongsan-gu, SeoulArtists
Minjeong An, Monica Kim Garza, Myung-Joo Kim, Na Kim, Eunsae Lee, Sofia Mitsola, Anna Jung Seo, Shin Min, Wu JiaruExhibition Dates
16 January – 27 February, 2026Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Friday | 11 AM – 6 PM, Saturday | 12 PM – 6 PMWebsite
https://p21.krInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/p21.kr/Contact
info@p21.kr(Text and images courtesy of P21)
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A Lighthouse called Kanata Presents All is Fulfilled, a Solo Exhibition by Keisuke Matsuda
Poster credit: A Lighthouse called Kanata A Lighthouse called Kanata proudly presents All is Fulfilled , a solo exhibition by Kyoto based painter Keisuke Matsuda, featuring fourteen new works created specifically for this presentation at our new gallery in Omotesando, Tokyo, Japan.
As art critic Minoru Shimizu says of the artist, his works are not abstract, for he paints with clear intent; and yet they are not representational, for what appears on the surface cannot be named as any familiar figuration. Instead, singular and difficult-to-describe forms are flung across the plane—or into space itself. One may need a moment to acclimate before recognizing the charm: the freedom and fluidity that accompany what at first glance appears rough, the buoyant strangeness and humor of his forms, the exquisitely chosen colors.
untitled (spiraea thunbergii), 2025, Oil on canvas, 116.7 x 91 cm Duchamp left behind an epitaph: “It is always the others who die.” Indeed, no matter how much something is explained in words, life is full of experiences that one must encounter oneself. From “birth” to “death,” everything happens for the first time—even to the most ordinary child. Faced with painting’s impasse—where no matter what one paints or how, the sense of déjà vu (that polished, cynical feeling) cannot be wiped away—artists thought the following: Painting must be understood as a proper noun. No matter how banal or kitsch its appearance, I experience it for the first time. Painting is what I, this singular self, paint—and what paints me in return. In the 2000s, many artists emerged who compensated for this tautology with ever more crafted, artisanal techniques. Today the market is awash in paintings overflowing with narrative and explanation—pseudo-confessional works that proclaim their meanings and leave nothing unsaid. Standing apart from the cynical painters and the “this-self ” painters, Keisuke Matsuda possessed genuine “things to paint.” These “things to paint” arise beyond the point where one has discarded the self, the motif, and even the manner of depiction.
The artist describes his own process: “When I am completely focused in the studio, the world and myself begin to compress. Then, at a certain instant, they fold together, and my-self become the world. In the next moment, the world peels away again, leaving an imprint adhered inside me. That trace is volatile—it fades quickly—so before it disappears, I hurry to retrace it. That becomes the work. The experience of ‘self = world,’ prior to the division of subject and object, is the reason I continue to paint.”
untitled (pounce), 2025, Oil on canvas, 91 x 65.4 cm Indeed, the characteristics of his work follow directly from this principle: his disinterest in painterly effect; the rough, rapid strokes and lines that pursue evaporating forms; the absence of composition premised on a frame. Matsuda’s paintings are the traces of a moment in which subject and world are newly separated and newly generated—each and every time. One may feel intimidated by the talk of phenomenological reduction or Zen enlightenment, but expressed differently it is a familiar phrase in dance, music, and sport: the best performance—movement, playing, competition—happens when one becomes “empty,” when the self is momentarily gone. Needless to say, no one can become empty by willing it (“I have become empty” is itself a form of consciousness). One only realizes, after an exceptional performance, that one was empty.
That Matsuda’s painting is a kind of visualize d performance (dance, gesture) is evident in the fact that most of his works have no fixed orientation, and in the near-equivalence of his painting and his ceramics. What he presents is a replay—a regeneration—of the world before the separation of self and object, unconcerned with the medium of expression. A work devoted solely to manifesting “what must be painted” is forthright and pure. And the place prior to subject is an airy world that brims with light.
Minoru Shimizu, Art Critic
untitled (small garden), 2025, Oil on canvas, 38 x 45.6 cm Venue
3-5-7 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan 150-0001Artists
Keisuke MatsudaExhibition Dates
13 February, 2025 – 28 February, 2026Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PMWebsite
https://lighthouse-kanata.com/en/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/lighthouse_kanata/Contact
info@lighthouse-kanata.comAbout the Artist and Work
KEISUKE MATSUDA
“I try to paint a world that transcends the objective and the subjective. This world consciously changes, and by moving the body and the image in my mind’s eye, the world begins to express the real world itself.”
One of Kanata’s newest young artists in painting, Keisuke Matsuda (1984– ) of Kyoto channels energies that abound in mysticism and spirituality to create seemingly minimal abstractions that brim with a self-assured confidence that is beyond his years. Having received his MFA at the Kyoto City University of Arts, the artist has lived a relatively quiet, almost hermit-like existence in the south of Kyoto where his studio is located. Yet in recent years this up-and-coming painter has garnered a core following from collectors attracted to the sort of primitive, almost primordial paintings that are borne from the artist’s deep conversations with his materials and with his constant conversations with the world before him.
The artist, in fact, claims that his works are figurative, and are attempts to grasp the tangible world around him by capturing and painting the world of “things” through imagery that are essentially “intangible”. After long and tumultuous conversations within himself, the artist would viscerally paint the world of the tangible in minimal, simplistic brushstrokes that capture a mood, a time, a place in the mind of the artist.
In the words of the artist, “When I am completely focused in the studio, the world and myself begin to compress. Then, at a certain instant, they fold together and myself becomes the world. In the next moment, the world peels away again, leaving an imprint adhered inside me. That trace is volatile—it fades quickly—so before it disappears, I hurry to retrace it. That becomes the work. The experience of ‘self = world,’ prior to the division of subject and object, is the reason I continue to paint.”
(Text and images courtesy of A Lighthouse called Kanata and Keisuke Matsuda)
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Interview | Chicago-Based Artist Fengzee Yang
Fengzee Yang is a Chicago-based artist who makes body-vessels that encapsulate suspended identity and echo nonlinear time, where memory, absence, and longing coexist. She earned her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her works have been exhibited at spaces including Comfort Station, The Plan, Slow Dance Space, Tala, ARC Gallery, Artruss, and Cochrane Woods Art Center of the University of Chicago. She has participated in artist residencies at Jingdezhen International Studio, Jingdezhen, China; Oxbow School of Art, MI; Vermont Studio Center, VT; and ACRE Residency, WI.
Where Goes the Wheel of Fortune, 2023, Wood, Stoneware, 32 x 30 x 32 in Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
I am a sculpture-based artist currently living and working in Chicago. I earned my BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where my formal artistic journey began. It was during my time there that I became obsessed with the physical weight and the hands-on process of sculptures.
My Castle, 2023, Stoneware, 26 x 31 x 19 in What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?
I’m exploring the theme of how the body can be understood as a responsive apparatus of time and memory, an interface that translates, filters, and extends. It carries a form of memory where every encounter leaves a subtle imprint, folding back into its structure. The body acts as a mechanism that reshapes the conditions of its own existence, sensing and reorganizing in a constant state of transformation. In this sense, the body constitutes the logic through which space comes into being. It weaves interior and exterior together, forming a field where breathing, touching, and seeing renew the texture of its envelope. Within this process, the body becomes an archive of resonance, holding the past while attuning itself toward what is yet to arrive.The body functions as a container, archive, and anticipation. It operates as a temporal structure, converting experience into potential. Its pulse and breath form a quiet technique of survival, sustaining life through tension, modulation, and renewal.
boop, 2021, Stoneware, 16 x 8 x 11 in Are there any particular mediums you prefer working with? Why?
Two of my main mediums are hand-carved wood and ceramics. I gravitate toward materials that possess their own internal clock. I primarily work with ceramics and wood because they demand a form of sustained labor that mirrors the body’s own rhythmic processes. Each takes a long time to work with. For me, clay is a responsive archive; it remembers every pressure of the finger before it is vitrified in the kiln. Wood, on the other hand, is a pre-existing record of time that I must negotiate with through carving. I choose these mediums because they don’t just represent the body; they behave like it—absorbing forces, recording encounters, and reconfiguring their boundaries through the process of making.
dreambed, 2022, Stoneware, Cast bronze, 20 x 10 x 13 in Who or what are your biggest influences, both artistically and personally?
Artistically, I am deeply influenced by the geological architecture of the natural world, specifically stones and fossils. I see a fossil not as a static object, but as an archive of time; it is a frozen resonance of a life once lived. Similarly, I see rocks as products of immense duration, shaped and eroded by time. In my studio, my process of adding and subtracting material is a way of mimicking the gesture of time. I want my sculptures to feel as though they weren’t just made, but that they occurred through a slow process of sedimentation and wear.
Personally, this is inseparable from my experience as an immigrant. Living between cultures forces the body to become a highly sensitive, responsive instrument. You are constantly filtering new environments and reconfiguring your own boundaries to survive. There is a persistent longing for grounding amidst the uncertainty of displacement. My work becomes the site where I weave my interior memory with the exterior world, attempting to create a sense of place through the rhythmic pulse of making. Just as the body converts experience into potential, my practice converts the tension of ‘not belonging’ into a physical, textured archive of survival.
A Chunk of Angel, 2024, Stoneware, 20 x 17 x 6 in What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?
The main challenge I face is maintaining a creative pulse within a state of constant flux. We live in a time where environments, personal circumstances, and even our sense of home are frequently disrupted. I overcome this by shifting my perspective: I see these changes not as obstacles, but as the forces that shape the work. I think my work is designed to filter and translate these very pressures.
Breathe, 2023, Wood, 7 x 14 x 6 in What do you hope people take away from your art when they experience it?
The question I am asked most often is whether my works are found objects. I want the viewer to feel the same tension and pulse I feel while making the work. I want them to stop looking at the sculpture as a static thing and start seeing it as a spontaneous being, a living process. I want people to realize that the human body is not separate from the natural world. Ultimately, I want the work to act as a mirror for their own existence, reminding them that they, too, are an archive of resonance.
Text & photo courtesy of Fengzee Yang
Website: https://www.fengzeeyang.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kfvkq/
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Interview | Los Angeles and London-based Artist Matthew Chung
Matthew Chung (b.1996) is a Korean American multidisciplinary artist working across image-making, printmaking, and sculpture. Born and raised in Los Angeles and currently based between the USA and the UK, his practice engages with both traditional and emergent technologies to explore new material and conceptual outcomes.
Rooted in a spirit of experimentation, Chung treats his studio as a space of continuous tinkering where analog processes like film photography and printmaking meet digital tools, coding, and computational systems. His work often draws from personal histories, Catholic iconography, and the entangled legacies of Korean and American culture, offering poetic reflections on identity, memory, and belonging.
Chung’s practice is research-led and iterative, often unfolding through processes of documentation, assemblage, and transformation. He approaches materials and media with a systematic curiosity and aims to reimagine how we perceive, process, and share experiences in a rapidly evolving world.
Chung holds an MA in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art, where he advanced his interdisciplinary practice through research-led methodologies. His work there focused on the translation of abstract ideas into experiential forms, investigating how information can be articulated through spatial, material, and sensorial strategies.
Star Spangled Banner, 2023, Denim frabic, gesso, cyanotype, metal wire, 127 x 89 cm Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
My artistic journey wasn’t straightforward, but if I had to pinpoint a beginning, it would be the moment I discovered my dad’s old Fujica 35mm film camera, collecting dust behind a pile of forgotten things. Around the same time, I had enrolled in a high school art class, an elective I took just to fulfill graduation requirements. By chance, the classroom had a small, long-unused darkroom tucked away in the corner. I asked my teacher if I could use it, and she enthusiastically agreed to show me how to develop and print black-and-white film. After a few lessons, I was off and running, shooting with my dad’s camera and developing prints in that dim, red-lit space on my own.
That was where I first truly felt connected to art, not just with photography, but with the creative process. With failure. With chance. I learned to experiment, to trust what materials could teach me, and to find value even in what went wrong. That early experience shaped how I still approach making: through patience, curiosity, and quiet transformation.
For a long time, I didn’t think an artistic life was possible. Raised in a family of medical professionals, I believed I was meant to follow that path too. I studied biology and marine ecosystems before slowly shifting course, inspired in part by my younger sibling’s acceptance into art school. I switched majors to business management with a focus on the apparel industry, a compromise between practicality and creativity.
That decision led me into fashion design and garment construction, where I again felt a creative drive, this time with fabric. The act of cutting, shaping, and stitching became another form of storytelling, sculpting soft forms from blank canvases.
After some time working in the fashion industry, I returned to study full-time, earning an MA in Information Experience Design at the Royal College of Art. There, I explored new ways of working and thinking, blending technology, research, and material practice. Though I now work across mediums, from digital tools to found objects, I often return to textiles, drawn by their familiarity and quiet intimacy.
Today, I balance my studio practice with work in product development and project management, weaving together creative and practical worlds to sustain both my life and my art.
Life Passes By, 2016-2023, Archival photography print, 480 x 80 cm How do you stay inspired and motivated to create new work?
My biggest challenge often lies in the tangle of too many ideas. I’m easily swept into starting new projects, each one pulling at my attention, and sometimes they remain unfinished. Still, I believe in the importance of materializing fleeting ideas before they slip away; even if it’s just a quick note or a doodle in a sketchbook. Translating abstract thoughts into the physical world, no matter how small, is always the first step.
When inspiration runs dry, I turn to movement. A walk through the city, a bike ride at dusk, or even a slow drive without destination helps loosen my mind. I let my eyes drift, watch the way light touches surfaces, or how strangers carry their stories. The world never stops offering.
Photography has always been a useful companion in these moments. It keeps me present and tuned in. Holding a camera pushes me to search for compositions, textures, gestures, and so much more; I’m constantly reminded that beauty often hides in the ordinary. It forces me onto my feet and into my surroundings, helping me stay sharp, curious, and aware of moments I might otherwise overlook.
That habit of wandering often becomes searching. Since I was a child, I’ve been drawn to objects like stones with strange textures, bits of fossils, and forgotten things. I would pocket them not just for their beauty, but because they felt like evidence of something quiet and real. That instinct to scavenge still lingers in my work. Found objects carry histories I could not invent. They offer me new directions, new materials, and a grounding presence when I feel lost in abstraction. Perhaps a poetic way to justify my hoarding habits.
Inspiration, for me, comes not in flashes but in fragments. I notice them, gather them, and hold onto them until they begin to take shape.
Chasing Cheese, 2025, Metal wire & resin, 16 x 12 x 11 cm, Photo Credit @yu_hao_studio What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?
I’ve never been much of an open book. I tend to keep things to myself, often hiding my feelings without fully knowing why. Maybe it’s something I inherited; a kind of masculinity that teaches you to view vulnerability as weakness. For a long time, I believed that the safest way to move through the world was by staying guarded.
When I first began making art, I leaned into scientific or philosophical ideas. I thought if I kept things conceptual, I wouldn’t have to reveal too much of myself. Those frameworks gave me a way to speak without exposing too much. But the more I created, the more I found myself drawn to the emotional undercurrents; the quiet, personal threads that ran just beneath the surface. I began to understand that my work didn’t need to shout to say something meaningful.
Sometimes, it just needed to be honest. I’ve realized that the work that stays with me, the pieces that feel most alive, are the ones rooted in personal experience.
Now, I see my practice as a way to reflect on what it means to be human; to understand the experiences, contradictions, and emotions that shape us. I’m interested in memory, in identity, in the complexity of family, in the quiet rituals of everyday life. Art allows me to process these things at my own pace, and to offer fragments of understanding to others.
While not all of my work is autobiographical, it’s all personal in some way. I’m trying to make sense of where I come from and where I’m going. Maybe, in doing so, I can open up space for others to do the same.
Come And Take It, 2023, Rice & metal, 43 x 26 x 23 cm, PhotoCredit @paristexas84 What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?
One of the greatest challenges I’ve faced as an artist is the quiet voice that says I don’t belong. I came to art later than some, and that doubt lingers. There’s this constant feeling that I haven’t earned my place, that I’m still catching up. I’ve never been one to take up space easily. Shyness runs deep in me, and stepping into the light has never felt natural.
At the same time, my mind rarely rests. Ideas arrive like waves, one after another, each more urgent than the last. I begin projects in bursts of energy, only to be pulled toward the next thing before the last is finished. There’s a kind of beautiful chaos in it, but also a weight; the pressure to make something new, something meaningful, something no one has seen before. That longing can be paralyzing. It’s easy to get lost in the sauce.
What’s helped is learning to be gentle with myself. To remember that there’s no single way to be an artist, no checklist to follow. I’ve stopped waiting for confidence to arrive. I’m learning to build confidence not by waiting for it, but by doing: by making, by sharing, by stepping into discomfort. I’ve found that honesty is its own kind of compass. I try to remind myself that I’m only human, and so is everyone else. If I can be true to what I feel, what I’ve lived, then I can offer something real. Not perfect, not polished, but ultimately mine.
Are You From North Or South, 2023, Fabric & waxed, 95 x 125 cm (each) What do you hope people take away from your art when they experience it?
I don’t expect everyone to understand my work in the same way, but I do hope they feel something. A flicker of recognition, a memory stirred, a question they didn’t know they had.
Maybe even a quiet laugh. If my work can prompt someone to pause and reflect, then I’ve done my part.
I’m not interested in offering answers or instructions. I’m more curious about what happens in the space between the viewer and the work, the kinds of personal interpretations and emotional responses that I could never fully predict. If someone leaves feeling a little more connected to themselves, to others, or to this strange human experience, then I consider that a success.
In the end, I make work because it helps me process the world and my place within it. Sharing that feels like a way of reaching out and if even one person feels seen, moved, or understood through it, then that’s more than enough.
America Needs Jesus Now More Than Ever, 2023, Brass, silver & plastic beads, 40 x 9 cm How do you approach exhibiting your work? What are your goals when showing your art in public spaces?
When I exhibit my work, I think carefully about how it can be experienced beyond just being looked at. I’m interested in creating moments that feel immersive where the space, the senses, and the viewer are all part of the conversation. I often consider how to engage not just sight, but also touch, sound, smell, and even taste when it makes sense.
Interactivity is something I value, especially in public spaces. I want people to feel like they can enter the work, not just observe it from a distance. My goal is to create an environment that invites reflection, connection, and maybe even dialogue; a shared experience that lingers in memory, even in small ways.
Ultimately, I see exhibitions as opportunities to extend the life of a piece, letting it meet people where they are and open itself to new interpretations.
Text & photo courtesy of Matthew Chung
Website: https://meingeist.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chungmatthieu
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Interview | New York-based Artist Audrey Chou
Yi-Han (Audrey) Chou is a New Media Artist & Choreographic Researcher working across time-based and embodied mediums.
Her multidisciplinary research spans interactive & real-time system design, experimental filmmaking, site-specific performances, durational performances, audio- visual, sound design, and immersive production. Through cross-disciplinary frameworks, she explores themes of dysphoria, displacement, and sonic landscapes— centering embodied storytelling as a method of artistic inquiry.
She practices and investigates the intersections of movement, identity, and sensory perception, drawing on cultural memory, ecological awareness, and temporal healing as conceptual anchors, where she is constantly researching in between institutional and commercial relationships, social and personal structures, as well as languages that connect the in-betweenness of things across phygital platforms.
The Pond, 2025, TouchDesigner, interactive installation, Custom scale, Photo credit: Audrey Chou Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
I started learning drawing and painting really young, as well as ballet and piano for a few years, but I think I was focusing on visual arts more while growing up compared to other areas of the arts, and went to an art school in middle school after an entrance exam.
I think that I just always felt like I am an artist, and seeing myself as an artist since a young age.
However in middle school, I also started to miss being in my body, as well as dancing, so I also went back to dance at the same time when I have free time, and realized that I would also like to be in the performing arts as a career.
The Pond, 2025, TouchDesigner, interactive installation, Custom scale, Photo credit: Audrey Chou Your work brings together interactive design, experimental filmmaking, and site-specific performance. How do these elements come together in your practice, and where does a project usually begin for you?
I think that I grew up with an interest in learning different kinds of art forms, ranging from music, performance, as well as visual art. I am just not a kid who is too interested in academic studies growing up, so I spent most of my time doing sports or arts. I started doing multimedia and digital art, as well as filmmaking in high school, and more performance at the same time, with a thought of possibly fully involved in things like acting, and street dancing as a career, but also knowing that my strong suits in visual arts are my focus.
The Pond, 2025, TouchDesigner, interactive installation, Custom scale, Photo credit: Audrey Chou How does real-time performance affect the way a work unfolds, shifts, and transforms over time?
I think that all of these media are not too different for me as long as we understand the foundation of it, and how these all linked together to tell a story or express a feeling.
I think what is interesting about real-time is that every time we do it is always different, and it also grows along with our practice.
Rhizome, 2024, Dance performance, Credits: Real-time audio visual: Shiqing Chen, Caren Wenqing Ye, Dancer: Audrey Chou, Music: Milam, Photo documentation: Chealsea Ning, Ziwei Ji What are your thoughts on the use of technology and digital platforms in the art world today?
I think it is interesting to use technology as an artist, but at the same time, I miss being on my hands, as well as miss the feeling of not having anything digital in my life at all.
I think using technology as a medium definitely puts my body and mind space into the machine, and at the same time, I feel like I am slower in making sometimes due to the fact that I do not consider myself an engineer. I think it is interesting and hard to find a balance between learning a software, getting more familiar with a software, or maybe just being more conceptual and working with someone who is an engineer.
Fieldwork, 2024, Audio-visual performance, Photo credit: Audrey Chou How do you manage feedback or criticism, especially in the context of public exhibitions?
I think that I will just take notes about other people’s ideas, but knowing that that’s only their perspective, not necessarily about the good and bad of the piece itself because art is subjective anyway.
Fieldwork, 2024, Audio-visual performance, Photo credit: Audrey Chou What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?
I am currently working on a full-evening-length immersive interactive production – FILLING THE SHELL, I think I put a lot of my heart into the piece, and I do see this piece grow along with my collaborator, practice, and hope to develop the work further in multiple residencies if I can. I think I can see the work grow as a more solid piece in 2 – 3 years.
Text & photo courtesy of Yi-Han (Audrey) Chou
Website: https://audreychoustudio.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_audreychou__/
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Johyun Gallery Seoul Presents Love of this Age, a Solo Exhibition by Lee So Yeun
Sheep Mask, 2025, Oil on canvas, 160 x 140 cm Johyun Gallery_Seoul presents Love of this Age, a solo exhibition by Lee So Yeun, on view from December 17, 2025 to February 8, 2026. Featuring twelve new works, the exhibition transforms the gallery’s enclosed white cube into a phantasmagoric and private sanctum. Through this spatial intervention, Lee summons layered personas of the self, shaped by accumulated inner records and memories of place. The exhibition title, borrowed from the poetry collection of the renowned poet Choi Seung-ja, resonates with the artist’s personal experience of capturing the flow of time and the unyielding intensity of emotion. This emotional tenor permeates the entire exhibition, where the pictorial frame functions as a medium that freely invokes invisible sensations and time.
The deep crimson walls, painted in Carmine—a vivid red pigment historically extracted from cochineal beetles—serve as a device that transcends a mere exhibition backdrop to physically manifest the artist’s intimate interiority. Within this visceral space, painting expands beyond the flat surface to become an experiential stage. The objects depicted are all personal items the artist has owned and used: a candlestick purchased in Amsterdam two decades ago, a brewery bottle, a Chamisul soju bottle, a green David Hockney monograph. These objets stand as evidence of the time that has passed through the artist’s life, forming sedimented layers of memories where different eras and places overlap. In particular, Hockney’s book marks a decisive turning point for Lee; she recalls a four-hour exhibition visit that shook her to the core, fundamentally reorienting her artistic bearing thereafter.
Black Dress, 2025, Oil on canvas, 220 x 400 cm Visitors are invited into this private, phantasmagoric, yet theatrical atmosphere created by golden, candle-lit shadows. These expressive shadows, as arresting as the objects themselves, and the light piercing through them, blur the boundaries between reality and unreality. This interplay evokes the viewer’s own senses, superimposing them atop the artist’s private recollections. At the center appears a figure, gazing at the viewer: it is Lee So Yeun’s self-portrait. However, this figure is less about the traditional identity of a self-portrait and closer to a narrative device. Unlike her early works, in recent pieces, the artist minimizes facial shadows, removes expression, and maintains the figure in a neutral state through backlit silhouetting. This strategy creates space for viewers to project their own emotions. Meanwhile, in a broad sense, since every object on the screen reflects the artist’s ego, the work may also be read as an expanded self-portrait.
Reconstructing the artist’s past memories, this exhibition simultaneously prefigures future structural changes. Previously, the figure was fixed center-canvas, but has now shifted—or rather, exited the screen—gaining posture and movement in the dynamic unfolding of the composition. In works without backgrounds, a single figure or object functions as the subject and center, directly presenting the emotion of the moment. Conversely, in works with backgrounds, figures, objects, and colors all operate as equal narrative agents, weaving complex stories across the entire screen. Lee plans to expand into larger objects such as pianos, horses, and large dining tables, and to experiment with installation and sculptural elements in future works. In the changes of color and lighting, and in the formal decisions where the entire screen has become more dramatic, one senses a desire to reclaim greater self-determinacy.
The artist invites the audience to approach the work sensually, intuitively, and instinctively rather than via calculated interpretation, which she deems excessive for her work. To think and experience the sensory whole created by the atmosphere of color, light, shadow, and space—that is the method of viewing appropriate for this exhibition.
Installation view of Love of this Age, Lee So Yeun, 2025, Courtesy of Johyun Gallery_Seoul What is Painting to Me? – Lee So Yeun
Every figure inhabiting my canvas is a self-portrait. Yet, these are not about the likenesses captured before a mirror. Rather, they are personas forged across the diverse landscapes and nations I have traveled and experienced. Manifesting at times as a young girl, a stranger, or a mask-like visage, they reveal the multiple strata of my identity.
For me, painting is not a mere technique of mimetically reproducing reality. It is a medium that summons invisible sensations and accumulated time. Within this pictorial space, the authentic self and the constructed self—the private individual versus the social face—intersect to generate tension.
Ultimately, painting is a form of play. Rather than adhering to a correct answer regarding perspective, color, or composition, I deliberately distort and destabilize these elements, staging scenes that coax out the diverse egos within me. Thus, I define painting as a magical language—one through which I navigate the countless versions of the self and reconnect with the world.
What is painting? To answer that question, and to excavate the myriad “Is” buried deeper within, I will continue to paint.
Installation view of Love of this Age, Lee So Yeun, 2025, Courtesy of Johyun Gallery_Seoul Emotion as Art, Lee So Yeun’s Persona
Weaving the public foundation of art through deeply private emotions compels us to re-examine the relationship between the individual and the world. This is not merely about contrasting collective history with personal sentiment; rather, it fundamentally concerns the stance of the subject who places that relationship at the center of their consciousness. To understand this, we might look to the literary concept of grammatical personhood, that is the linguistic structure that defines the distance between I (First Person), You (Second Person), and They (Third Person). In Lee So Yeun’s work, emotion functions like this grammar: it is a mechanism of affect that bridges the gap between the creator’s private intention and the viewer’s public immersion. Emotion here does not stagnate within the private self; instead, it expands outward, establishing the very conditions for identity precisely at the moment of contact with the world. The Persona is the anthropomorphized manifestation of this will—a bridge built to traverse the distance between the self and the Other.
In her practice, Lee So Yeun has long utilized the figure not as a realistic representation, but as a projection of her interiority. To borrow from the sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982), she constructs a Front—a term Goffman used to describe the performance space where an individual manages the impression they give to others. Through Dramatic Realization, Lee presents idealized or controlled versions of the self using costumes, masks, and staging, thereby curating the truth the viewer perceives. However, her latest works introduce a relational totality that shifts this dynamic. By blurring the semi-transparent boundary between her sense of self and the external world, she moves beyond mere theatrical performance into a realm of affective resonance. Here, the artist’s presence is not acted out on a stage but felt in the room, sublimating private emotion into a topography of contemporary identity that crosses historical time and space.
The exhibition Love of this Age (2025) at Johyun Gallery Seoul marks a decisive departure from Lee’s previous methodology. In the past, she employed a strategy of the spotlight, highlighting the persona-figure and the dramatic situation they inhabited. In contrast, the new works evoke a far more open atmosphere of communication. This shift occurs because the everyday objects constituting the artist’s life have now usurped the position of the Front once occupied by the figure, transforming from mere accessories into active agents of biographical testimony. These objects—supports for a layer of sensory collection—summon the artist’s persona from the realm of the surreal into the immediate here and now.
Featuring consumer goods imprinted with brand names and specific tastes (such as in Black Dress (2025), Fox Fur Stole (2025), Sheep Mask(2025), Black Wig (2025), Yellow Wig (2025) ), Lee compels the viewer to withdraw the conventional iconographic gaze usually reserved for the figure. Instead, these objects naturally activate an opportunity for the viewer to autonomously organize the totality of reality through emotional metaphor. This comprehensive reorganization of the object’s status on the canvas serves as a contemporary renewal of the Vanitas tradition. Unlike historical Vanitas which mobilized dead objects (skulls, rotting fruit) to preach the moral lessons of emptiness and transience, Lee So Yeun aggregates living objects—items of actual use and fragmented traces of life summoned from the layered depths of memory. These are not symbols of death, but aesthetic practices of vivid scene manifestation that prioritize the tactile presence of the living over the symbolism of the dead. Through works like the Parallel Still Life series, the artist readjusts the order that synchronizes the subject and the world, allowing phenomena to be perceived anew within a diversified semantic network of time and space.
As the artist herself has revealed, the title Love of this Age is borrowed from the poetry collection of the same name by Choi Seung-ja (1981). It is telling that Lee, who previously favored titles based on surface indicators, has now chosen one that reveals her emotions without concealment. This intuitive choice elevates the status of everyday life and objects from mere peripheral elements to central agents of meaning. “Love” in this context is not a passion limited by conventional hierarchy, but a fierce existential will to establish a transcendental relationship with the world. From this vantage point, Lee So Yeun’s painting traverses the crevasse between art and reality in a form that is both delicate and resolute.
Jang Jin-taek (Art Critic)
Lee So Yeun Artist Profile ©Lee So Yeun About Artist
Lee So Yeun (b.1971)
https://www.johyungallery.com/artists/53-lee-so-yeun/biography/Lee So Yeun’s self-portraits, reminiscent of identification photos, vividly depict snapshots of her life’s journey and the epochs she has navigated. Depicted with bold forms and luminous hues, the objects laden with multiple meanings evoke a subtle theatrical atmosphere and an unusual intimacy. It weaves together elements of similarity and contrast, delicately balancing between closeness and estrangement. Lee So Yeun majored in fine art in South Korea and continued her studies at the Münster Kunst Academy in Germany. Her nomination for Düsseldorf’s “Emprise Art Prize” catalysed her recognition within the German art sector. By 2005, she earned the “Young Artist Award” from the Columbus Art Foundation in Ravensburg. From 2006, she collaborated exclusively with Düsseldorf’s esteemed Conrad Gallery, achieving international acclaim at renowned art fairs including the Cologne Art Colony in Germany, Show Off in Paris, ARCO in Madrid, and Scope and Pulse Art Fairs in New York. She has showcased solo exhibitions at Kunsthaus Essen (2014), Johyun Gallery (2014), and Space K (2013). She also participated in notable group exhibitions at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (2018), Sejong Centre (2017), Amway Museum (2016), Pohang Museum of Steel Art (2015), and Gallery Lux (2015). Currently, her works are part of collections at TCB collection in Japan, Achenbach Art Consulting in Germany, the Columbus Foundation, and t.VIS.t Communication in Madrid, Spain.
Venue
Johyun Gallery_Seoul, B1 The Shilla Hotel, 249 Dongho-ro, Jung-gu, SeoulArtists
Lee So YeunExhibition Dates
17 Dec, 2025 – 8 February, 2026Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Sunday | 10:30 AM – 18:30 PMWebsite
https://www.johyungallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/johyungallery/Contact
info@johyungallery.com(Text and images courtesy of Johyun Gallery_Seoul)
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Whitestone Gallery Presents a Group Exhibition: Almost Spring
Poster credit: Whitestone Gallery Whitestone Gallery is pleased to present Almost Spring, a curated selection from the gallery’s collection, unfolding across multiple floors as a gradual shift in mood, material, and color. Like the season it alludes to, the exhibition inhabits a moment of transition—where stillness begins to loosen and subtle vitality surfaces.
Jiang Miao, Mindfulness, 2023, Acrylic on aluminium panel, carving, 90.0 x 90.0 cm The B1 space is dedicated to abstract works that emphasize texture and materiality. Featuring works by Yayoi Kusama, Jiang Miao, Soonik Kwon, Tsuyoshi Maekawa and Katsuyoshi Inokuma, this floor invites viewers into a tactile landscape shaped by repetition, gesture, and surface. Here, matter feels dense and contemplative, echoing the quiet persistence beneath winter’s pause.
Karen Shiozawa, Dune, 2024, Alkyd resin, acrylic, oil on wooden panel, 116.7 x 91 cm Moving upward, the 2nd floor opens into a more dynamic visual rhythm. Works by Aruta Soup, Karen Shiozawa, and Jaehyun Lee explore pop-inflected color, movement, and layered textures in distinct stylistic languages. The atmosphere becomes lighter and more animated, suggesting energy beginning to circulate—forms stretch, colors vibrate, and compositions breathe more freely.
The exhibition culminates on the 4th floor, which focuses on print works by internationally recognized artists including Damien Hirst, KAWS, and Yayoi Kusama, among others. Bright, graphic, and playful, these works foreground pop sensibility and reproducibility, offering a sense of openness and immediacy that completes the exhibition’s gradual ascent toward color and clarity.
We hope visitors enjoy this exhibition as a moment just before spring fully arrives.
Venue
Whitestone Gallery Seoul, 70 Sowol-ro, Yongsan-ku, Seoul, KoreaArtists
Yayoi Kusama, Damien Hirst, Lee Ufan, Julian Opie, KAWS, Florentijn Hofman, Tsuyoshi Maekawa, Katsuyoshi Inokuma, Kwon Soonik, Lee Jaehyun, Jiang Miao, Aruta Soup, Ahhi Choi, Karen ShiozawaExhibtion Dates
24 January – 28 February, 2026Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Sunday | 11 AM – 7 PMWebsite
https://www.whitestone-gallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/whitestonegallery.officialContact
https://www.whitestone-gallery.com/pages/contact(Text and images courtesy of Whitestone Gallery Seoul)
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Interview | Hong Kong-based Artist Ailsa Wong
Ailsa Wong (b. 1997)’s practice spans across paintings, videos, image-making, games, and installations. Wong explores ways to connect consciousness with primitive emotions to fill the vacuum of belief. Wong’s means of communication draw inspiration from fractured life experiences, wherein meaning is repeatedly dissolved and re-established.
Wong’s solo exhibitions include “1” at DE SARTHE (Hong Kong, 2025), “Disembody” at Cattle Depot Artist Village (Hong Kong, 2025), and “00:00” at Yrellag Gallery (Hong Kong, 2024). Wong participated in duo solo exhibition “This Bitter Earth” at Gallery Exit (Hong Kong, 2019), joint exhibition “I Don’t Know How to Love You Teach Me to Love” at Das Esszimmer (Germany, 2024), and “Ways of Running and Embracing” at Floating Projects (Hong Kong, 2023).
Wong currently lives and works in Hong Kong.
Ant Mill, 2025, 3D video game Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
I’ve enjoyed drawing since I was a child, and during my secondary school years, I was particularly drawn to illustration. My practice began to expand more significantly when I studied Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. There, I developed a strong interest in working across different media, including painting, digital formats, image-based works, and installation.
After graduating, I have some opportunities to exhibit my work. Some projects came through invitations, while others were self-initiated or developed collaboratively with others through funded exhibitions. I just continue making work by responding to opportunities as they arise, allowing my practice to evolve naturally.
Antigora, 2025, 2D Visual novel game What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your new media art? Are there any particular media you prefer working with? Why?
My new media practice revolves around three closely connected themes: techno-animism, the relationship between virtual worlds and human consciousness, and artificial intelligence as both a material and a collaborator. I am interested in how contemporary technologies shape belief systems, perception, and inner spiritual experience, especially in a time when traditional frameworks of belief feel fragmented.
I don’t have a fixed preference when it comes to medium. I work with paint, rust, fabric, metal, clay, electronic devices, AI-generated images, 3D models, sound, readymade objects… Each medium carries its own texture, character, and material presence. I’m interested in bringing these different textures together to construct a world within the exhibition space that viewers can experience as a whole rather than as separate elements.
Caves, 2025, 2D Visual novel game Can you describe a recent project or artwork that you are particularly proud of?
That would be my recent solo exhibition at DE SARTHE, which took place from May to July 2025. The exhibition transformed the gallery into an immersive, cave-like environment inspired by the interior of an ant nest, bringing together interactive video games, sound installation, moving sculptures, and mixed media works.
Through this exhibition, I explored ideas of techno-animism and collective existence, using the ant colony as a metaphor for interconnected systems of living, mechanical, and digital entities. Works such as the interactive games Antigora and Ant Mill invited viewers to navigate fictional belief systems and closed feedback loops, while sound and sculptural elements functioned almost like ritual objects within the space.
Embryos, 2025, Clay, epoxy, photo transfer on canvas, 160 x 210 cm I was particularly satisfied with how the exhibition worked as a unified experiential system rather than a display of individual artworks. It allowed me to fully integrate digital media, physical materials, and spatial design to create an environment that visitors could inhabit, reflecting my ongoing interest in belief, consciousness, and technology as living systems.
Millipede, 2024, Second hands, quartz clock movements, clay and sand, Size variable Who or what are your biggest influences, both artistically and personally?
I would say Mark Rothko. I learned his work during my university studies, and it fundamentally shifted how I understand art: not as an imitation of the existing world, but as the creation of a new experiential reality.
A few years ago, I visited Rothko Chapel in Houston and it felt almost like a religious experience. The relationship between the space, the paintings, and the viewer created an intense sense of emotional resonance. Since then, I’ve become much more attentive to how exhibition environments shape perception and feeling, and how space itself can function as an integral part of the artwork.
Rope, Flash and Rock Wall, 2024, Mixed media on fabric, 77 x 68 cm What is your creative process like? Do you follow a routine or work spontaneously?
My creative process varies depending on the medium, but it is mostly intuitive and spontaneous. I don’t follow a fixed routine, and I often allow the material I’m working with to guide the process.
For painting, I usually have no drafts, approaching it almost like automatic drawing. For my rust paintings, for example, I apply chemical liquids onto metal plates and allow the natural rusting process to unfold unpredictably. I then respond to the forms that emerge, and further develope the composition.
Sleek/Keels, 2024, Mixed media on metal, A series of two, 40 × 40 cm each When working with games, such as my 2D visual novel game Caves, my process becomes more curatorial. I generate a large volume of AI-produced images, then select and categorize them, pairing them with text and narrative fragments. Meaning emerges through this process of selection, association, and sequencing rather than from a fixed plan.
For installations, I usually begin with a rough draft, but the work evolves through discussions with technicians with technical considerations. The final outcome often differs from the original idea.
1, a solo exhibiton by Ailsa Wong at DE SARTHE What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?
I am currently developing a new game project that draws on research into cosmology, archaeology, and paleontology, as well as creation myths from Eastern and Western traditions. I’m interested in exploring how ancient narratives about the origin of the world can be reinterpreted through contemporary digital systems through this project.
Looking ahead, I plan to keep working across different media and continue to develop my research around virtual worlds as inner landscapes, artificial intelligence as a form of collective consciousness, and techno-animism.
Text & photo courtesy of Ailsa Wong
Website: https://ailsaw.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ailsa.ww/
