Human Package I, 2004
Digital print on canvas (left)

Purgatory II, 2003
Digital print (right)

Christine Ay Tjoe makes her figures out of discarded materials such that they appear dirty and ragged. The process of making them this way and then digitally photographing them and transferring these images onto canvas, for Christine, is like creating another entity. "This process is important to me, reflecting that beyond an ordered and systemized existence, there is another order or system at work creating and imposing its will on all existence." "Human Package I" and "Purgatory II" reflect Christine’s concern over the tension between two competing and invisible systems; one that mediates reality, the other that exists beyond and in excess of the former. According to Christine, the one tells us and others 'who' we are, pulling us further away from the internal energy that is 'what' we really are.
(Text by Amanda Rath)