Tom Howse uses humour to explore the balance between realism, fantasy and our desire to know and our inability to comprehend. The artist reconstructs the hierarchy of living things and invites the unstable reality into the comfortable setting of a personal living room.

Chris Measor, born in Ottawa, Canada in 1984, graduated from the Musashino Art University in Japan. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions both domestically and internationally, including two solo exhibitions in Thailand and South Korea. Based in Busan, he continues his artistic endeavors and is an artist whose international career is highly anticipated.
Chris Measor expresses various themes in his work, including European mythology, satire, philosophy, history, politics, and film, by anthropomorphizing animal characters. The animal figures in his works, such as cats, dogs, and rabbits, serve as engaging mediums that attract the audience's interest and guide them through the narrative. By using animals as motifs, the artist avoids potential biases that might arise from depicting human characters, where aspects like race, class, and age could distort the essential meaning he intends to convey. He aims for viewers to immerse themselves in the storytelling without preconceived notions. The artist encourages a reflection on the everyday characters that might be overlooked and hopes that each character in his works represents the protagonists of life, inviting the audience to explore their diverse stories. He creates a layered base on wooden panels using gesso and sanding techniques, applying acrylic gouache and acrylic ink to achieve depth and detail in his artwork.

Shaina McCoy works from photographs to paint her family members in thick, expressive brushstrokes. While her source material is deeply personal, McCoy renders her subjects without faces, inviting her viewers to project themselves and their own relatives into her scenes. As she depicts subjects from many stages of life and employs a wide range of skin tones and compositional styles, McCoy thematizes the diversity and complexity of Black families and experience.

Maverick Abac's practice explores painting and collages on various media as a reflection of his consciousness and upbringing. Navigating the realm of memory, his works are known best for their pop surrealist meditations of our individual and collective psychological experiences.

Alex Jo’s work, which is bright, bold, and colorful, is in stark contrast to his actual appearance, who enjoys wearing achromatic colors and has an introverted personality. The reason why he prefers bright and colorful colors in his works is that he can express himself in a different way that he cannot show outwardly. While using pop-up colors as point colors, the greatest charm of his work is the comfort that stands out in harmony. The balance of pop-up colors presents the coexistence of comfort and splendor. Alex Jo composed and developed this color coordination based on organic and vintage colors which is inspired from the old pillars of traditional Korean houses and naturally dyed Hanbok (Korean traditional wear) garments with fruits and plants. In his work, what stands out along with the strong colors are the straight lines that give off a masculine feeling. It is also a beautiful characteristic of Alex Jo’s work that he has completed the subtle emotional delivery that harmoniously completes a rather cold line and a warm story by using the story of the artist's own warm sensibility as a message while using masculine shapes as the main motif. 

Atreyu Moniaga is an Indonesian artist based in Jakarta. He gradu- ated with a degree in Communications and Visual Design from the Jakarta Institute of the Arts (IKJ) and started his career in the creative scene as a freelance illustrator and photographer. His works are influ- enced by dark fantasies with a tinge of surrealism, in which he com- bines visual symbolisms as a way to communicate his most private thoughts, feelings, and desires. Although he takes inspiration from somber sentients, his works are characterized by a whimsical universe filled with beautiful ornamental details. Working primarily in paint- ing and drawing, Atreyu has recently explored sculpting and remains open to cross-disciplinary collaborations. 

Complex emotions that are often perceived as negative, such as despair, grief, and anguish but they are fuels to his artistic process. Moniaga tries to convey these emotions through the visual universe he invented. Incorporating reference from popular culture, medie- val legends, and religious stories, Moniaga crafts symbols and coded visual languages in his paintings as a way to express his innermost thoughts, feelings, and desires. He hopes his audience can find a source of hopefulness and self-acceptance to confront their own grim facets. He often allows himself to be lost in his own thoughts, where He feels unbound in creating these fictional stories and characters found in his works, his universe. 

Choi Soo Jung attempts to experiment the conditions of traditional painting and seek pictorial ways to break limits beyond the canvas. She has been working to explore the memory and narrative that could be seen beyond the surface through the painting, which is a physical image on the surface, and between painting and space, and the image that activates in narratives.

The artist Lee Seokyoung, who expresses the ventilation of everyday life through her painting work, transforms the complex state of daily life into expansive colors and uses the technique of "erasing to draw" on the wet surface of the paint, leaving only visual language and sensory experience. The process of revealing the broad colors on the white canvas creates a space where the body of the painting can take control. The live brushstrokes, made in a single sweep without layering multiple coats, demand the artist's intense concentration and create a composition that breaks free from conventional and rigid systems. In this process, by erasing between the wet paints, the work is not obliterated but reborn through exposure, transforming into a neutral and pure form of language.

Dohyun Kim has visually expressed internal rest, recovery, and stability on the canvas. He fills the canvas with irregular patterns of cardboard shaped in flat waves and colors it with stable hues reminiscent of nature, abstractly visualizing the human inner realm. Within the screen constructed of repeated lines and gaps, and within the rhythm of layered and filled colors, he builds the order of spontaneously emerging forms, colors, and spaces.

Kim Yong-il explores childhood memories and collective emotions through the recurring motif of the house. Depicting villages, homes, and fragments of everyday life, his paintings evoke the fading traces of lived experiences. For the artist, the house is not merely an architectural structure but a symbolic space where personal memories intersect with shared communal narratives.
Kim’s work unfolds through two visual narratives: the “stories of day” and the “stories of night.” The former presents luminous scenes of houses and fields bathed in sunlight, recalling the vitality and warmth of childhood memories. The latter introduces a quieter and more contemplative atmosphere, shaped by the imagery of moonlight and seolbap—snow that falls around the Lunar New Year. Together, these two modes traverse different layers of time and recollection, expanding personal memory into a shared emotional landscape.
Charcoal plays a crucial role particularly in the “night” series. The material, reminiscent of the charcoal the artist once played with as a child, becomes a medium for recalling memory. By covering the canvas with charcoal and then scraping it away, Kim creates subtle tonal gradations that suggest memories fading or intensifying over time. This process produces a calm atmosphere and generous areas of empty space that invite viewers to project their own recollections into the work.
Rather than merely depicting landscapes, Kim Yong-il’s paintings function as devices that recall disappearing traces of life and communal memory. The expansive blank spaces within his compositions allow the viewer’s memories to enter the work, transforming the artist’s personal narrative into a shared story of nostalgia, empathy, and quiet reflection.

Ian Ha (b.1997)aims to explore various possibilities of spatial illusions on flat surfaces by irregularly editing various materials and arbitrary subjects. Everyday objects, commonly seen in Ian Ha’s work, are dissected and rearranged by the artist, blurring the boundaries between painting and reality, while posing questions about the reality itself. This reflects the artist’s attempt to reproduce the contemporary phenomenon of desensitization to the flood of random information and images that are often not easy to filter or control, and also reflects the artist’s contemplation on how two dimensional art can be convinced in a technologically advanced society where the gap between virtual space and reality is gradually narrowing.
Ian Ha has B.F.A. in Seoul National University and is a candidate for M.F.A. in Columbia University School of Visual Arts. His solo exhibitions include Shifts and Echoes, Fragment Gallery, New York (2023); The Uncanny, Rabbit and Tiger Gallery, Seoul (2022). The artist also participated in group exhibitions such as in media res, The Blanc Gallery, New York (2023); Standouts, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami (2023); Trajectory of Time, Space U, Bundang (2022).

Ryoko Kaneta
b. 1991, Ibaraki, Japan

Kaneta takes inspiration from Ancient Japanese Philosophy, including ideologies such as God being one that dwells in all beings. Her artworks express the existence of Gods, Natural Phenomenons, and knowledge that goes beyond the human mind. The narrative exists but only as a fleeting spectacle of Nature which within holds the quintessential elements that Kaneta personifies through a female figure. Her paintings are dreamy populated landscapes on a large scale, they are a celebration of nature’s ephemerality as they emphasize the frailty of time, the phenomenon of weather and all the dramatic seasonal transformations that come with it. Employing her very own soft delicate acrylic colour technique, Kaneta is at the same time influenced by Rinpa and Kano Schools in their approach of painting through the eye of Ancient Japanese literature that portrays such scenes of nature.

I am constantly in search of people and places that bring me a sense of stability. In life, I am always confronted with certain thresholds where I long for steadiness. At those boundaries, I find myself seeking environments and situations that help me maintain a calm emotional state. Most of these are familiar to me: my family, my home, my room, and the surroundings that have held me for a long time. When I ask myself where the process of being filled and forming a sense of self first began, I cannot leave out home and family. I hold close to my heart the softness and warmth of these things, and the precious moments at home where I can express my feelings honestly. In doing so, I try to preserve a quiet emotional balance. It was only natural, then, that the act of painting and the choice of what to paint began with what was closest to me. As I step into the home and room marked by my own traces, I find myself covering over the unstable emotions I could not express outside, and recovering a sense of calm and peace. I capture in my paintings the blue wallpaper close to my body, the scattered blue clothes, the blue blankets and pillows—objects that bear the touch of my hand. Along with them, I try to hold within the painting the tactile sensations of these things against the skin, as well as the emotions of those moments: the comfort, warmth, and tenderness that arise from familiarity.

The feeling of fur brushing between my toes,
the rush of air when my father lifts the blanket high and lets it fall while I am lying down,
the snug warmth of tucking the blanket tightly around my body,
the feeling of touching the cool temperature that has settled into the pillow because of the wind outside,
the soft texture of an old blanket worn thin with holes,
a pair of socks turned inside out on the floor,
the faint sunlight slipping through the blinds,
the sunlight and brightness that reach me as I lie down,
the moon visible through the window before sleep...

I gather these emotions and sensations from my own place and wrap them together, trying to paint their atmosphere and energy. In the process of expression, the act of applying materials softly onto hanji, or tearing its surface to reveal its delicate fibres, has itself become a process through which I find emotional calm. Through the repeated gestures of laying down thick layers of paint and scraping them away, or raising the surface of the hanji, I attempt to convey indirectly a kind of fluffy, tender warmth even through the material surface itself.
Ultimately, I hope that a painting, shaped by the attitude revealed in both the subject I look at and the process of making, can become a bearer of warmth—something held close at one’s side—and that the scope of this warmth may gradually expand.

The artist records vanished neighborhoods and landscapes, translating memory and loss into painting. The city is reimagined not as a real place, but as a layered, emotional space shaped by time and perception. What remains is a self-portrait, constructed through the memory of a city that no longer exists.

JuAe Park presents works in this exhibition that take the body itself as material. At the intersection of mural labor and artistic practice, the work documents acts of applying paint directly and rolling across the floor as panoramic images.

I once read a column by a Korean journalist. In it, he recounted a moment during his travels in the Middle East when he suddenly remembered a novel he had read in his youth that had left a deep impression on him. On a whim, he stepped into a shop and purchased a carpet. Rather than placing it on the floor, he brought it home and hung it on the wall as a decoration.

While working on my own practice, I found myself struggling for a time, unsure of what kind of painting I should make. Some pieces came easily, but others did not. As I looked at the discarded canvas and paint, I tried to understand the cause, but I could only feel lost and uncertain. Recently, however, I had a chance to look deeper into myself. A few significant events—some big, some small—created that opportunity. I began to retrace memories I had previously passed over without much thought, flipping through old photo albums, selecting images that resonated with me in a different way than before. I even read the novel that had inspired the journalist.

In the novel, the carpet is a gift given to the protagonist by an old poet when asked what life is. Only later, after experiencing the various hardships of life, does the protagonist come to understand its meaning. The carpet affirms the purposelessness of life. Just as the weaver wove the carpet to fulfill their own aesthetic sensibility, without any other purpose, we too must accept that life is not about clinging to each and every event, but about recognizing that our own pattern is gradually taking shape.

Reflecting on the story, I felt a sense of peace. Like the weaver crafting the carpet, like the journalist who chose to hang it on the wall rather than lay it on the floor, I fixed raw canvas directly to the wall, without a frame, and traced its surface with dry, short brushstrokes, as if following the warp threads of a carpet. This method of working felt natural. As I focused on the rough texture of the brushstrokes, the painting began to take on a pattern of its own.

Tomotoshi Hoshino (b. 1961, Tokyo) is a distinguished Nihonga painter and a specially selected
member of the Japan Art Institute (Inten), one of Japan’s most prestigious art organizations. He
encountered Japanese painting at the age of 14 and later studied under Kōhei Morita. Since his
first acceptance to the Inten Exhibition in 1987, he has continued to exhibit extensively both in
Japan and internationally. His solo exhibitions have been held in venues such as Nihombashi
Takashimaya (Tokyo), as well as in Paris, New York, and Oslo. His works are included in the
collection of the Omishima Museum of Art.

Zelalem Merga, a visionary artist hailing from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is known for his profound connection to emotions and the natural world. Born in 1989, he earned his BFA from Addis Ababa University Alle School of Fine Arts and Design (Graphics Department) in 2013, and currently resides in the vibrant Ethiopian capital.
Driven by passion and an unwavering commitment to innovation, Zelalem transforms discarded materials into mesmerizing works of art. His creative process is fueled by an innate desire to elevate the ordinary, encouraging viewers to reconsider the value of everyday objects and contemplate their own consumption habits.
In Zelalem's artwork, there is an underlying sense of disquiet, reflecting the complexities of the modern world in which we live. Through his masterful use of recycled materials, he constructs captivating portraits that challenge the status quo and leave a lasting impression on the art world. Each piece is a testament to the transformative power of art and the potential for renewal within ourselves and the world around us.
Zelalem Merga's work is not only an ode to the beauty and splendor of nature but also a celebration of human creativity and resilience. As an artist who truly embodies the essence of Artue's brand, we are honored to showcase his remarkable talent and share his unique perspective with our community of art enthusiasts.

Twenty-one artists were invited to pay homage to Goya: Fernando Arrabal, Miquel Barceló, Beatriz González, Jenny Holzer, Cristina Iglesias, Anne Imhof, Alfredo Jaar, Koo Jeong A, Alexander Kluge, Robert Longo, Cildo Meireles, Precious Okoyomon, Philippe Parreno, Raymond Pettibon, Elena Del Rivero, Rachel Rose, Thomas Schütte, Santiago Sierra, Rosemarie Trockel, Luc Tuymans, and Adrián Villar Rojas.

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