Albert Yonathan Setyawan’s practice centres on ceramic installations that manifest in spectacular wall and floor-based arrangements of varying scale and form. The works primarily consist of repeated forms created through a slip-cast method. In this process, the original objects are replicated using a mould, often more than 1000 times, in a process the artist describes as ‘art labour’. For Setyawan, this repeated, labour-intensive practice is meditative — a key ethos of his practice that emphasises the physicality of handmade objects.

Spires of undifferentiated being 2023–24 consists of two symbols — a flame and a hand — that explore the process of creating the work itself, as well as Setyawan’s philosophy of his practice. The flame symbolises the process that transforms clay into a pervasive material, and, by extension, human evolution as a material process that traverses cultures and time.