Christine Ay Tjoe (b. 1973, Indonesia) started her career as a graphic artist. She experimented with drypoint technique, which led her to create intricate, layered paintings. In her early prints and drawings, Ay Tjoe drew extensively from plants, subtly reflecting on environmental degradation. Inspired by the root systems of plants, she explored the expressive potential of linework, developing a distinctive visual language that is today foundational to her image-making practice.

Intrigued by human emotions and the relationship between humanity and the cosmos, Ay Tjoe often conveys feelings and complexities such as melancholy, struggle, pain and happiness through her works. They gesture to universal human experiences and how mythology and spirituality affect our mental states. A more direct connection to the human body figures prominently in her recent work, offering a visceral sense of physicality and alludes to both physical and metaphysical states of being. Her work underscores the interconnectedness of the mind, body and soul, while exploring their inherent fragility.

Ay Tjoe has exhibited widely across the world, including a major survey at the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2018) and an exhibition at the Hall Art Foundation in Derneburg, Germany (2022).