Titled Women Artists of Asia-Pacific: Nostalgi = Transendensi (nostalgia = transcendence), the exhibition brings together 47 works by 30 women artists from 12 countries. Running from Oct. 9 to Dec. 9, it surveys more than a century of artistic practice, from pioneering modernists to contemporary artists exploring new materials and forms.

The exhibition also includes artists from outside the region, particularly Europeans whose connections with the Asia-Pacific developed through travel or extended residence. Their presence adds another dimension to the cultural exchanges that have shaped artistic expression in the region.

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Looking beyond the artworks themselves, the exhibition invites reflection on the different paths taken by pioneering women artists. Chinese artist Pan Yuliang, Singaporean painter Georgette Chen and Indonesian painter Emiria Soenassa, for instance, each negotiated the encounter between Western modernism and local cultural contexts.

Their experiences, however, were far from identical.

Emiria (1894-1964) traveled extensively across the Indonesian archipelago and brought the lives and cultures of its diverse communities into her paintings. Chen (1907-1992), who received artistic training in Paris and New York before settling in Singapore, became an important figure in the development of the Nanyang style, combining Western painting techniques with Asian subjects.

Their practices illustrate how modernism was not simply imported from the West but reinterpreted through the regional experiences of individual artists.

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