Chris Ro (b.1976) is a graphic designer and artist. His work can be characterized for their kinetic, spatial, poetic and atmospheric properties. Born in Seattle, Chris went on to study architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. After working as both architect and designer he went on to study graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design. This mixed background continues to influence his explorations that fluctuate between both two and three dimensions. He is often at home when exploring concepts in motion and space and their relationship to the more static surfaces of graphic design. He recently finished research exploring concepts in Korean space at Seoul National University.
His work has been exhibited all over the world and is part of the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Die Neue Sammlung, the Seoul National University Museum of Art, Hongik University Museum of Art, Platform-L Contemporary Art Center and the National Hangeul Museum.

b. 1992, Chongqing, China
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Xiyao received her Bachelor of Arts from Sichuan Fine Art Institute in China in 2014, and both her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg (2018, 2020).
 
The Berlin-based Chinese artist creates large-scale, immersive paintings in which gestural lines evoke echoes of landscapes, bodies, movements, thoughts. In the process, she develops a kind of hybrid abstract painting that combines various influences and inspirations: Taoism and post-structuralism, ancient Chinese pictorial traditions, bodywork, dance, martial arts, and the canon of Western art history. Xiyao Wang’s paintings explore inner visions, bodily perceptions, sensations, feelings, interrogating her East-West biography.
 
Her solo exhibitions include: Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok (2024), Massimo de Carlo, Milan (2024); Perrotin Gallery, New York (2024); Song Art Museum, Beijing (2023); Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (2023);  Perrotin Gallery, Seoul (2023); Massimo de Carlo, London (2023); König Gallery, Berlin (2023); Perrotin Gallery, Paris (2022); Arndt Collection, Melbourne (2022); Gerber Stauffer Fine Arts, Zurich (2021); A Thousand Plateaus Gallery, Chengdu (2021); Soy Capitán Gallery, Berlin (2019).
 
Her work has been featured in important international venues, including the Bangkok Art Biennale, Bangkok (2024); Tank Shanghai, Shanghai (2024); Yuan Art Museum, Beijing (2024); König Galerie (2024); Le Château d’Aubenas, South France (2024); K11 Art Foundation, Hongkong (2024); CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2024); The Art Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing (2024); he Institutum, Singapore (2024); Yuan Art Museum, Beijing (2023);  Shepparton Art Museum, Australia (2023); Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen (2023); Art Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing (2023); Aurora Museum, Shanghai (2022); Jiu Shi Art Museum, Shanghai (2022); New Now Contemporary Art Museum, Rizhao (2023); Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig (2020); Cité international des arts, Paris (2018); Sprink, Dusseldorf (2018); and Chongqing Contemporary Art Center (2015), among many others.


For almost forty years, Heri Dono has developed a fantastical world of dichotomies in his paintings. Humorously juxtaposing reality with imagination, folk with contemporary art, politics with fiction, the tension between these opposing forces create narratives that cut across a complex, multi-layered system of ideologies. Having lived through the struggle against oppression by the Indonesian regime in the 1980s, and later the ‘reformasi’ in 1998 that spawned from the end of Suharto’s regime and developed into the neo-liberal globalization of Indonesia as it is today, Heri Dono’s artistic methodology re-examines power structures through satirical illustrations of humans versus the Other, man versus machine, offering a kind of passage for others to survive real life transitions during challenging times. 
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He is known for his uniquely contemporary, Javanese style inspired by traditional Wayang Kulit (puppet theatre). Through his construction of thoughtful layers in his work, he is able to emphasize the more serious, underlying reflections on and criticisms of social and political issues such as military intervention, political corruption, and environmental destruction, allowing easier engagement with often difficult concepts. 
 
Heri Dono participated in no less than 31 international biennales. His works have been widely exhibited, including at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2015, the Gwangju Biennale in 1995 and 2006, the Singapore Art Museum, the National Gallery of Indonesia in Jakarta, Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, France, and Asia Society New York, among others. His works are in the collections of the Deutsche Guggenheim in Frankfurt, the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan, the Singapore Art Museum, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. Award winners of the Prince Claus Award for Culture and Development (1998), the Unesco Prize in 2000, and the Anugerah Adhikarya Rupa (Arts Award) from the Indonesian Government in 2014.

Jo Jae, an artist based in Seoul, is fundamentally interested in the concept of "space" — a place created, inhabited, and sometimes demolished by humans. A space itself symbolizes the people who occupy it, and its inhabitants inevitably leave traces of themselves. These traces can become important clues, sparking intense curiosity. Driven by this curiosity, Jo Jae crafts stories with images based on these clues. Her work spans photography, installations, and even design, but she sees no difference between these acts. Photography, as the flat print of tangible objects, conveys an ethereal subject matter, allowing the relationship between images and stories to leave room for imagination. This is why photographic media currently remains her most preferred medium.
Jo Jae’s work begins in the virtual realm. Since 2020, she has been translating the intersection between digital images and their original counterparts into a sculptural form. By visualizing the gap between digital images and the unprocessed originals, she aims to establish a new sense that bridges the virtual and the real worlds.

Jonghwan Lee attempts to extract the vitality of painting from the illusion of paintings medium's physical relationship. For this purpose, he frequently combines pictures from his prior works with new elements. Instead of being recognised for what the image itself represents, they are recognised as a material for paintings. Through the interaction between image and medium, vision and reality, the artist evokes the painting with a subjective vital eye. In addition, while he dissects, penetrates, deconstructs, examines the relationship between pictures produced in paintings and mediums, and investigates the 'vitality of painting.' The process begins with the hypothesis and repeats as 'production-observation-confirmation-hypothesize-resetting'. There are no such things as an independent project; rather, they are interconnected, moving forward and continuously reflecting.

Xian Kim (b. 1992) graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Printmaking from the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University, China, and subsequently completed her Master's at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, also in China, specializing in Printmaking. Kim reimagines familiar biological forms and objects with a texture akin to plastic, focusing solely on their essence by stripping away all non-essential elements commonly encountered in everyday life. The still life compositions of re-envisioned objects and organisms exude an absence of warmth, yet they remain objective, simple, and sometimes brutally honest. Through her works, everything within the canvas exists in an ideal state of non-existence, free from the complexities of reality—conceptual layers are removed, creating a unique utopia exclusive to Xian Kim.

Uji Handoko Eko Saputro (aka Hahan)
b.1983, Indonesia
 
Creates works characterized by an ongoing tussle between ‘high art’ and ‘low art’, blurring realism with decoration. His works illustrate a point of contact that exists between urbanization and agrarianism or between the local and the global that both critique and admit complicity with the structures and mechanisms of the commercial artworld. Indeed, themes of rejection and success are present throughout Hahan’s practice, which spans painting, sculpture, drawing and print-making. These works offer an insight into the psyche of a post-boom South-East Asian artist navigating the complexities and challenges of an expanding global art world.

In recent years, he has attempted to display an art with the concept that emphasizes on the interaction with the visitors and relate it with the development of art in global as well as its society. Based on his grounded interest in the realms of value, time and speculations, Hahan lays his nonpareil craft by showing a metaphorical atmosphere yet full of satirical humor. He would then elucidate the mapping of production / consumption matter of cutting-edge art market and its gleaming, and also the ironies which are then packed with alluring spirit of artistic exploration.
 
He was also one of the founders of Ace House Collective, a young artists’ collective and initiative space based in Yogyakarta . Ace House Collective is an artists' collective that works with communities and their networks in running a space as a youth art and culture laboratory. Established in 2011 on self-funding, this community strives to support and develop the potential and the contribution to the latest art practices by providing a platform for productions, dialogues, and collaborations through assembly forums and exchanges.
 
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Indonesia and abroad, such on Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2019, NGV TRIENNIAL 1st 2017 Melbourne and APT 7th 2012 Brisbane. His art works have been being collected by several art museums like Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Brisbane, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Melbourne, National Gallery of Australia (NGA) Canberra, Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) Sydney, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) Darwin.

Kama was born in 1995, is a young artist living in Saigon. Most of his practice revolves around street art, especially Graffiti. In addition to developing personal projects, zKhoa is also a founder of the Wallovers (WO) team, which is a team of young artists have same orentation, , who want to bring street art to the masses in the near future.

zKhoa's interest revolves around inner interpretations and everyday life. His works are derived from everyday material, fragmented, brought to pieces and transformed into new forms in his own story.

Graffiti works by Kama tend to have bright colors, mixing personal voices, local stories and Asian spirit in the language of street art.

Asmawee Karee, born in 1999 in Betong, Thailand, is an emerging artist recognized for his exploration of identity, culture, and social dynamics within Thailand's diverse communities. Currently pursuing a master’s degree in visual arts at Silpakorn University in Bangkok, he gained early acclaim as the Bronze winner in the UOB Painting of the Year competition for emerging artists in 2022. Active in competitions and exhibitions since 2019, Asmawee has developed a distinctive visual language that merges traditional Thai motifs with contemporary expression, deeply influenced by his cultural and religious background. His art poignantly addresses themes of heritage, faith, and unity, resonating with audiences across Thailand’s multicultural landscape.

Asmawee's work has initiated important dialogues around cultural preservation and inclusivity, positioning him as a rising voice in Thai contemporary art. His influence extends beyond individual creations, as he participates in community-based projects that foster connections among Thailand’s diverse populations. Through his art and community engagement, Asmawee promotes unity and cultural awareness, making a lasting impact on the Thai art scene and contributing to its evolving dialogue on tradition and modernity in a globalized world.

Muholi is a visual activist and photographer born in Umlazi, Durban, and living in Johannesburg. The artist’s self-proclaimed mission is “to rewrite a black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond."

Chu Mirim(b. 1982) is based is Seoul. Using pixels as elements in her work, Chu engages in formative experiments that go beyond design and fine art. She critically explores keywords related to computer graphics, pixels, and the internet etc., and she has great interest in producing work where the cross- sectional aspect of images used in social network sites may be viewed from various angles. All her works, in particular, transform a visually hidden web-based society into a series of images, reflecting the artist’s intention to directly present the digital landscape around us. As time passes, her perspective which looks at the life forms of the contemporary young generation gets brought out across a more diverse spectrum.

SIM Raejung (b. 1983) translates a cynical narrative infused with everyday feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and powerlessness using her unique artistic language. From the various uncomfortable experiences encountered daily to somewhat bizarre fantasies, the emotions and thoughts pouring from the artist's soul swiftly transform into images. These images are expressed in their purest form, emanating a rhythmic yet dark ambiance. Her animation-style visual works take the form of a series of drawings where characters seem oblivious to their circumstances or pain, mindlessly eating, excreting, being severed, with bodies fragmented and entrails swaying and proliferating. Raejung's work is rhythmical, witty, and remains true to human instinct. Viewers are invited into a strange world where logical judgment and common sense do not apply, reminiscent of Antonin Artaud's Theater of Cruelty or the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini. They experience a profound catharsis and freedom akin to that offered by B-grade or horror films.


SIM Raejung was born in Daegu, Korea in 1983. She received her BFA and MFA in Fine Arts at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea. She has held solo exhibitions at ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL (Seoul, Korea, 2023), Space Cadalogs (Seoul, Korea, 2023), ARARIO MUSEUM in SPACE (Seoul, Korea, 2019), and Art Space Hue (Paju, Korea, 2016). She has participated in group exhibitions at Songeun (Seoul, Korea, 2023; 2021), Gyeonggi Museum of Art (Ansan, Korea, 2021),  ARARIO GALLERY CHEONAN  (Cheonan, Korea, 2020), ARARIO MUSEUM in SPACE (Seoul, Korea, 2017), Savina Museum of Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea, 2016), SOMA Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2015) and Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2014), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Gwacheon, Korea, 2013), Kumho Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2012), Sungkok Art Museum (Seoul, Korea, 2010), and more. She worked as a resident artist at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France in 2018, SeMA Nanji Residency, Seoul, Korea in 2015, MMCA Residency Goyang, Goyang, Korea, and Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo, Japan in 2013. She gained attention for being selected in Leeum Museum's Art Spectrum 2014 and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's Young Exploration 2013. In 2021, she was selected as one of the participants of the 21st SongEun Art Award Exhibition. Her works are collected by institutions such as the Seoul Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Art Bank of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and ARARIO MUSEUM.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and the anti-war painting Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art. Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles. Exceptionally prolific throughout his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

Yerim Choi's paintings focus on the present. The 'moment' is one that has not been found or is easily neglected. The artist has the desire to capture and convey these moments to the public. She majored in the Department of Fine Arts at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, and she continues to capture and recall pleasant recollections. Warm moments pause the movement of busy individuals, and the artist uses this moment to communicate with the audience and transmit warmth. Warm moments give confidence to confront the next difficulty, allowing for the next stage of recovery in daily life. The artist believes that the world as seen through her eyes will be reinterpreted and conveyed with a new tenderness.  

AHN Jisan (b.1979) works with traditional canvas painting, a relatively marginalized medium in contemporary art. His works depict reality, but one that is strangely misaligned or distorted. The depiction of obscure images adds visual tension, and these subjects, which have slipped out from reality, project an even greater uneasiness that brings out their innate anxiety. Upon confronting his work, there is an instant sense of discomfort. The emotional tension and gloominess are amplified by accentuating the material properties and mounting thick, expressive layers of paint onto the canvas. AHN's intention to express the subject in its raw visual state brings out the absorbed emotions created and embedded within it. These improvised animalistic expressions are possible through a thorough study and modeling process. The substantiality of the objects is neither constructed nor reconstructed but is, in fact, a realization of experienced, felt, and penetrated emotions. Rather than portraying the subject of conceptual representation through obvious imagery, the artist expresses the reality and emotional experience of the subject through intuition and empathy.

 

AHN Jisan was born in Busan in 1979. He received his BFA in Fine Art at Korea National University of Arts in 2006 and MFA in Painting at Frank Mohr Institute, Groningen, Netherlands in 2011. He has held solo exhibitions at various institutions including Galerie Bart (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2023; 2020; 2015; 2014), ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL (Seoul, Korea, 2024; 2023; 2016), Zaha Museum (Seoul, Korea, 2017), Hapjungjigu (Seoul, Korea, 2016), and more. He has participated in group exhibitions at ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL (Seoul, Korea, 2024; 2023; 2016), Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (Ansan, Korea, 2020; 2017), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Cheongju, Korea, 2020), Daegu Art Museum (Daegu, Korea, 2017), Jeonbuk Museum of Art (Wanju, Korea, 2016), Arko Art Center (Seoul, Korea, 2016), and more. In 2013, he was the artist-in-residence at Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam, Netherlands). In 2014, AHN won the Buning Brongers Prijzen (Amsterdam, Netherlands). His works are collected by numerous institutions including National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s Art Bank, Seoul Museum of Art,  Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, ARARIO MUSEUM.

Nor Tijan Firdaus (b.1986) is a Malaysian contemporary artist recognized for her innovative approach to mixed media art. With a background in Fine Arts, she has a keen focus on sustainability and environmental awareness, often using electronic waste as her primary medium. Her work reimagines discarded technology, transforming it into intricate art pieces that challenge the traditional definitions of beauty and value. This distinctive use of e-waste not only reflects her technical skill and creativity but also raises awareness of the environmental impact of consumerism, establishing her as a unique voice in the Malaysian art scene.

Tijan’s impact extends beyond her exhibitions, as her work has sparked conversations on sustainability in art and broader society. She has gained recognition through awards, notable exhibitions, and collaborations with environmental organizations, positioning her as a prominent advocate for eco-conscious art in Malaysia. Her influence has inspired a new generation of artists to consider the environmental implications of their materials, marking her as a pivotal figure in Malaysia’s evolving art landscape. Through her work, Tijan has contributed to a growing discourse on sustainability in art, bridging contemporary creativity with pressing environmental concerns.

The overarching theme of JIYOUNG LEE's work is the "Human Zoo." The term is inspired by zoos, depicting facets of human life where individuals, like animals in a zoo, lose their instincts and live predetermined lives shaped by societal expectations. The black ink wash surrounding the "Human Zoo" represents artificial rocks in the zoo, symbolizing societal norms, laws, and universal conventions desired by society. While seemingly protective, these elements also confine human nature. Through her art, JIYOUNG LEE aims to portray the individuality, homogenization, desires and confusion within this enclosed space, prompting reflection on the choices individuals make in navigating their lives within these confines.

The nature in Jaewon Jung’s paintings encompasses not only nature, which grows on its own without human touch but also nature that has been changed and catered for human preferences and desires. To her, nature is not just an object of contemplation or nostalgia for the lost landscapes, but something that incorporates time, memories, desires, new environment, and experiences that transcend beyond the visible spectrum. Nature continues to change in the past and present, reflecting the relationship between individuals and society, nature and humans, and appears in the most ideal form of that era. As we go back and forth between what's real and what's ideal, we reflect on changes in our perception of nature and ask ourselves what is “true” landscape painting in this era. Beyond realistic and illusory descriptions, she is trying to reproduce nature more sensibly.

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.

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