Christine Ay Tjoe

Christine Ay Tjoe was born in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1973 and studied graphic design and printmaking at the Bandung Institute of Technology, graduating in 1997. She continues to live and work in Bandung, and her practice spans printmaking, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation — a breadth that reflects both her technical formation and an expansive approach to material and meaning. Her work has attracted sustained critical attention across multiple languages and contexts, with writing on her practice appearing in publications ranging from Ocula and Artmag to The Observer and the German-language Art Critic, addressing themes that include abstraction, inner experience, and intergenerational family trauma.

Ay Tjoe's exhibition history traces a trajectory from early solo presentations in Indonesian cities — including shows at Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta and Edwin's Gallery in Jakarta in 2003, and at Redpoint Gallery in Bandung in 2001 — toward an increasingly international presence. A 2008 residency at STPI Workshop in Singapore led directly to the 2009 solo exhibition Eating Excess at STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery. Subsequent years brought solo exhibitions at Ota Fine Arts in Tokyo (Myriad of 'paste', 2016) and Shanghai (The Black Side, 2018; The Uncompromising #01, 2023), as well as a major solo at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (Spirituality and Allegory, 2018). Her relationship with White Cube has produced a series of significant presentations: Christine Ay Tjoe (Black, kcalB, Black, kcalB) at White Cube Bermondsey in London in 2018, Spinning in the Desert at White Cube Hong Kong in 2021, Lesser Numerator at White Cube Mason's Yard in London in 2023, and Covered and Cover at White Cube New York in 2025. A solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg (Hall Art Foundation) in Holle followed in 2022, and she was included in the Asia Society Triennial at Asia Society Museum in New York in 2020.

Ay Tjoe is represented primarily by White Cube across its London, Hong Kong, New York, and Paris spaces, and additionally by Ota Fine Arts in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Singapore, as well as Mnuchin Gallery in New York. Her work is held in the collections of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Museum MACAN in Jakarta, and the Singapore Art Museum. Among the awards she has received are the Philip Morris Indonesian Art Award (Top Five) in 2001, the SCMP Art Futures Prize in 2009, the Prudential Eye Award in the painting category in 2015, and the Asia Arts Game Changer Award, presented by Asia Society Hong Kong in 2019.