“Horror and fear are not the same,” Chen said. “Fear makes you want to run quickly, but horror makes you stop. You begin to ask a lot of questions within horror. What happened? Why am I feeling this? What is changing?”

The featured artists, trained in Western art academies, wrestle with the dual challenge of honoring their cultural and religious heritage while adapting it for a global audience. As they infuse traditional motifs into their work, I feel there is a risk that the profound depth of these elements may be diluted, often in efforts to engage with pressing contemporary issues such as identity politics and environmental concerns.