From memories come powerful reflections of fragility, resilience, and belonging

Ara contemporary in Senayan, Jakarta, welcomes visitors with two solo exhibitions featuring works by emerging international artists: Alisa Chunchue from Thailand and Mar Kristoff from Bali. Running from September 27 to November 2, 2025, the program presents Alisa’s Wound series in the Main Gallery and Mar’s Interloper in the Focus Gallery. Though displayed separately, the two exhibitions form a visual dialogue on memory, exploring its certainties, uncertainties, and the act of remembering.

Wounds, Healing, and Memory by Alisa Chunchue

In the Main Gallery, Alisa Chunchue showcases 13 works from her ongoing Wound series, developed since 2020. Originating as a response to grief, the works transform drawing into a meditative ritual. Using a pencil, she mimics surgical techniques, creating continuous circular patterns that evoke the processes of opening, stitching, and closing wounds. For Alisa, drawing becomes a way to confront both pain and recovery, a practice that is at once demanding and calming.

Alongside her drawings, Alisa presents Invisible Suture (2022–24) and Stitching (2024), glass sculptures that embody fragility and resilience. She reshapes glass—often regarded as rigid and cold—into flowing organic forms that remain structurally strong. Transparency and vulnerability in these works serve as metaphors for memory, enduring yet delicate. Through drawing, sculpture, and the performative presence of her body, Alisa turns art into a breathing process, an attempt to reconcile wounds with the marks they leave behind.

Her work has been recognized with the ARTJOG Young Artist Awards (2024), The Vogue Hong Kong Women’s Art Prize at the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2023), and the Prince Claus Seed Awards (2022). She has also exhibited at ARTJOG: Ramalan in Yogyakarta (2024), H Queen in Hong Kong (2023), and the Nguyen Art Foundation in Ho Chi Minh City (2022).

Ambiguity and Unstable Memory by Mar Kristoff

In contrast, Mar Kristoff presents Interloper, a series of 13 paintings reinterpreting family photographs and found objects. Rather than treating archives as neutral vessels of memory, he destabilizes their meanings through blurring, reframing, and displacement. The works create speculative spaces where memory is questioned, restructured, and sometimes erased.

The title Interloper reflects a state of ambiguity, evoking a figure who exists between insider and outsider, never fully belonging. With this approach, Kristoff challenges viewers to consider: in the act of remembering, whose narratives are acknowledged, and whose are overlooked?

A multidisciplinary artist, Kristoff explores themes of identity, nostalgia, time, and belonging. In 2024, he received the UOB Artist of the Year award in the emerging artist category. His works have also been featured in exhibitions in Bali, Jakarta, France, and Yogyakarta.

A Space of Memory at ara contemporary

Through Wound and Interloper, Alisa and Mar bring new vitality to drawing, sculpture, and painting as spaces for reflection. Ara contemporary emerges not only as a venue for exhibitions but also as a place to contemplate memory—fragile, fluid, and profoundly meaningful.

The exhibition is open to the public until November 2, 2025, at ara contemporary, Jl. Tulodong Bawah I No. 16, Senayan, Kebayoran Baru. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 AM to 7 PM, and on Sundays by appointment.

photo source: instagram.com/aracontemporary

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