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very time I think Ay Tjoe Christine has reached her peak, she proves me wrong.

Every time she proves me wrong with a work that is even better than the one before, I think this is it, and she will make sure I am wrong again.

But such is the nature of Ay Tjoe Christine, and by now I am prepared to be "defeated". She treads her path of excellence, reaching summit after summit, one peak after another, without a moment's rest.

In May 2009, she snatched the SCMP/Art Futures award from 18 participants at Art Hong Kong with her participatory piece that the judges of the panel, among whom was internationally renowned art critic Charles Merewether, valued as posing new dimensions. That was only shortly after her amazing sixth solo exhibition "Interiority of Hope" in Surabaya, East Java.

Last Saturday, she held her solo exhibition of works made at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI), an international publisher and dealer of fine art prints and works on paper, which invites outstanding artists to work with their unique facilities and dedicated team.

During her three-week residency, she once more pushed the boundaries of artistry, producing superb etchings not only on paper, but also on acrylic, creating a mixed media so refined and beautiful, it makes one stand in awe and quiet admiration.

The Black Box series reveals a surreal aesthetic laying bare a tender femininity within the harshness of the black.

Made of acrylic layered in black, the strongly imprinted scratches suggest raging emotions while a softer mood comes through in fine, flowing lines on the black surface, evoking a haunting sense of solitude.

Sometimes she leaves part of the black surface open to view an object through the transparent acrylic, as in Have a Black Box *07, and adds color making the whole a dramatic otherworldly "landscape" as in Have a Black Box *06. In Have a Black Box *02, the sausage reluctantly received by a suggestive digestive system can also be read as the male and female genitalia.

"Eating Excess", as the exhibition is titled, is an evolution of her earlier works, which were exhibited as "Silent Supper" in 2007.

The artist has always perceived lunch or supper as something superfluous, a necessity that obstructs the flow of creativity. She is of the opinion that nourishment must not be restricted to food, but should be sought in alternative forms of energy.

In her current exhibition, it is the excessive food consumption of our time that is a concern to her. Too much food nurtures the monster that is within each of us, she finds. "Food" here is not to be taken too literally, as it encompasses an entire understanding of the word. So we must balance our "food" intake, lest cravings and addiction take power over our bodies and minds.

Let Me Come Out is a series of etchings in which she pokes fun at situations of stress and cravings through the "monster" that she says is in each of us.

In Let Me Come Out * 403, the monster is like an emaciated witch, while in Let Me Come Out *203 the "monster" appears as a tired old man.

Poems bemoan the overload on women today:

"I am a woman who has fifteen minutes/to enjoy breakfast/to kiss/to confront/to touch/to taste/to lick/to drink/to out/to poke/to bite/to chew/to swallow."

In another work, she feels like she is being held in an eggshell:

"I am a woman by the name of Eggshell/given time only to touch my shell/to chase after its content as I would want/is not for me/only peeling, cleaving, and tearing."

Ay Tjoe reveals that these works were inspired by the rudimentary program of her residency, the pressure of which evoked feelings likened to that of an addict.

In pondering the laws in society, Ay Tjoe in fact ponders her own with works that carry her personal stamp.

Never going with the prevailing trends of the time, Ay Tjoe Christine succeeds in tackling universal issues marked by the turbulence of her own personal existence and her very personal aesthetic.

After senior artists Srihadi and Sunaryo, Ay Tjoe Christine is the third Indonesian artist - the first of the younger generation - whom the STPI invited for a residency.

The institute is one of a kind in Singapore, bringing together an art gallery, a paper mill, a printmaking workshop and an excellent technical team. It is a non-profit organization, supported in all of its endeavors by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

Ay Tjoe was born in 1973 in Bandung. In 1997, as a fresh graduate from the Bandung Institute of Technology, majoring in graphic art at the School of Fine Arts and Design, she first tried her hand in a textile plant, before becoming a successful fashion designer. But she ultimately decided her world was not that of commerce. Hers was the world of art. That her art eventually became a commercial commodity was not something she had planned for.

Dry point, a printing method by which the design to be printed is etched directly into the metal printing plate, became her favorite tool.

Ay Tjoe found solace in pressing the needle hard onto the plate, working preferably in the dark, without any lighting. Thus releasing her restrained emotions in raucous, abrupt angular lines, her mastery of dry point brought new luster to the art of printmaking.

As she proceeded on her path of excellence, using various modes, from drawing to painting to digital print, her signature dry-point features shine through even if she doesn't actually use the dry-point method. In the current exhibition, such features are also evident.

Ay Tjoe Christine - or Christine, as she is also known - has participated in numerous group exhibitions. The current show at STPI is her seventh solo exhibition.

Asked how her residency has affected her work, she reveals she has been greatly impressed by the fantastic teamwork of the technical team, but would have loved to explore new techniques, which the available facilities were unable to provide.

"Eating Excess"