Hope is a mystery. It has neither alliances nor destination but occurs in the grey zone, without certainty. Hope transcends time and has the potential for reunion, recollection and reconciliation. Indonesian artist, Christine Ay Tjoe’s new site specific installation “The Famous One from Lucas # I” recreates an interiority of hope in relation to humanity’s physical and spiritual interactions.

The focus on the goodness and mercy of the ‘Father’ symbolic in Christian faith as infinitely wise, loving and omnipresent, relates to Ay Tjoe’s optimism and notion of hope. Hope as something that transcends current time and mistakes, and residing in a potential reconciliation in the future, such as the mercy and generosity of the ‘Father’ for his Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke from the New Testament. The occurrence of the Son’s journey and eventual fall shows that the ‘Father’ is not an ever-protective figure, but more as ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’

Ay Tjoe transforms Third Floor into a cocoon shaped environment with soft, fabric panels enveloping and leading visitors into a labyrinth of discovery. Pinned onto these fabric walls are meticulous, hand stitched figurines resembling ethereal bodies symbolic of renewal and physical transcendence. Creating an atmosphere of repose and comfort, is a worn out, plush sofa sculpture, embellished with Ay Tjoe’s handmade figures evoking sentiments of familiarity and possibly, entrapment. Stirring, beautiful, and hauntingly sublime, Ay Tjoe’s installation compels us to rethink life and our acts in freedom.

These are the tensions and dilemmas behind the choice of freedom – will it usher greater uncertainties or meaning and hope? Does hope become a life force or acquire the form of despair? “The Famous One from Lucas # I” reveals the duality between extremes and is a contemporary framework that gives psychological insights to humanity’s ongoing questions.

About the Artist

Christine Ay Tjoe (b.1973, Bandung, Indonesia) studied at the Faculty of Visual Art and Design at the Institute Technology of Bandung (ITB), upon graduation in 1997 she gained success as a fashion designer specialising in textiles and returned to her artistic practice in early 2000. Ay Tjoe had exhibited widely, noted exhibitions include Indonesian Eye: Fantasies and Realities, Saatchi Gallery, London in 2011, Taboos and Transgressions in Contemporary Indonesian Art, Johnson Museum, Cornell University, New York in 2005, and Beijing International Art Biennale in 2003.