Back to Nature

Christine Ay Tjoe’s bold paintings create buzz at galleries and auctions around the world, but it’s in her quiet, leafy home in tropical Indonesia where she finds inspiration

- Oliver Giles

Artist Christine Ay Tjoe was about 18 when she began to see the world in a new way.

“When I was a child, we lived in a very densely populated area in Bandung,” says Ay Tjoe, 47, referring to the Indonesian metropolis where she still lives today, now on its outskirts. “Our house was in a small alley. Around me, there were only buildings.” It wasn’t until her late teens, when she was studying graphic design at the Bandung Institute of Technology, that she started exploring the tropical forest that surrounds the city— and fell in love. “Trees are living creatures, but they are so different to humans. They are so calm, not aggressive, but can grow so big.”

Ay Tjoe has turned to nature for inspiration ever since, especially in the past year, when she has been forced to spend more time than ever in her home and studio, leading her to scour her immediate surroundings for ideas. “I moved to this house around seven years ago,” she says over a video call, speaking through an interpreter. “I chose it because of the trees around it: there are palm trees here, and it’s close to the forest. I thought it would be a good place to make my work.”

Her garden has partly inspired her latest series of paintings, which are being shown at White Cube in Hong Kong from May 18 to August 28. As with many of her most famous paintings, this new series blurs the lines between abstraction and figuration, featuring depictions of plants, animals and people buried beneath dramatic washes of colour. “Sometimes I am not trying to add certain figures, but in the process, I see the figures emerge and add them in,” says Ay Tjoe.