Clasutta seeks to discern the essence of humanity through charmingly rendered animals. While her earlier work humorously portrayed awkwardness and embarrassment among human emotions, a new series has arrived. This piece explores the influences that have shaped her practice.

Read previous interviews here

- Your works often feel both intimate and restrained, holding a fragile distance between closeness and distance. How does your visual language bring this effect to the audience?

Clasutta: Humor lowers resistance. It invites people in.

I often see humans as animals — emotional creatures constantly learning how to exist with one another. That’s why my works appear soft, rounded, and easy to approach at first. The surface becomes a gentle cover for feelings that are often difficult to articulate.

Whitestone Gallery Singapore

- Has your artwork been related to your personal experience? How do you translate that fragile in-between state onto the canvas?

Clasutta: It often begins with something personal, but eventually becomes a shared secret — a feeling many people recognize, but rarely say out loud.

I translate that fragile in-between state through soft expressions, subtle gestures, and playful imagery that quietly carry vulnerability and contradiction. Rather than explaining emotions directly, I prefer to leave space for viewers to recognize their own feelings inside the work, almost as if they are the main character trying to make sense of their own life.

- Your work often engages with subtle social dynamics through your own visual vocabulary. How do you see your practice in relation to contemporary Indonesian society? And how do you position yourself within the broader Southeast Asian art landscape?

Clasutta: There is often an unspoken pressure to appear okay, emotionally stable, or successful, even when things feel uncertain beneath the surface. I think this feeling exists not only in Indonesia, but in modern life in general.

While my work is rooted in subtle social behaviors I observe around me, I’m more interested in emotional gestures and human interactions than direct cultural symbols.

I see my practice as part of a younger generation of Southeast Asian artists who explore emotional contradictions through playful yet emotionally layered imagery.

Whitestone Gallery Singapore

- In your Roommate? Series, how is this series different from your previous series? Is there a particular piece of work that carries the emotional weight of the exhibition?

Clasutta: I’m drawn to the quiet repetition in human behavior — different people, yet often the same emotional patterns. Romantic relationships make this especially visible: how we adjust, misunderstand, seek reassurance, and quietly hope to be chosen.

Roommates? explores what happens after love settles, when it no longer feels intense or idealized, but transforms into something quieter — trust, routine, patience, and the decision to stay. Works like Curated Love reflect this quieter form of intimacy.Compared to my previous series, which focused more on personal reflection, Roommates? expands into the emotional space between two people. The series not only explores intimacy, but also questions the romantic idea of “finding the right person.

"What if love is actually about becoming the right one?"

Clasutta “Curated Love” Close Up

- When you are preparing for your Roommate? exhibition, do you sense any new questions or impulses beginning to surface in your practice? Will you be interested in exploring more art types or techniques?

Clasutta: Preparing for Roommates? brought many new questions about the emotional dynamics within relationships. You never meet a person all at once — only in pieces, and never all of them. Those reflections slowly became recurring characters who began asking for spaces beyond the canvas.

Recently, I’ve become especially interested in sculpture and animation, because I’m curious about how these emotional narratives could exist beyond painting. But for now, painting continues to offer endless possibilities for exploration, and I still want to dig deeper into it.

- Some of your works are paired with quotes from films, suggesting a cinematic sensitivity in your practice. Does film play a significant role in your creative process? Are there any art forms that continue to inspire your work?

Clasutta: Film allows us to experience life through someone else’s perspective without having to change our own background or identity. That’s why cinema plays an important role in my creative process — it helps develop emotional perspectives and ways of thinking beyond personal experience.

There is something powerful about how film combines silence, timing, movement, and emotion. That sensitivity continues to influence the way I build atmosphere within my works. Beyond visual arts, performing arts, storytelling, and animation also continue to inspire the practice. Some of these characters no longer feel limited to painting — they begin to ask for movement, sound, and physical presence.

Whitestone Gallery Singapore

This new series spotlights romantic relationships, where the quiet, repetitive actions of people become most pronounced. It maps where intimacy originates and, at the same time, exposes the contradictions of feeling. We should keep an eye on her latest work, which captures the subtle movements people make within society.

Through Reverie: Love and Memory | A Duo-solo Exhibition by Clasutta and C.K.Koh