The highly anticipated Art Basel returns to the harbour city of Hong Kong in 2025, bringing together 240 galleries from 42 countries and territories from March 28-30. Spanning painting, sculpture, digital art and photography, the fair will showcase artists ranging from early 20th century modernists to leading contemporary voices.

STIR picks eight artists and galleries from the Asia-Pacific exhibiting at Art Basel Hong Kong, to give you an overview of arts practice in the region.

Tarq: Saju Kunhan

Founded by Hena Kapadia in 2014, Tarq is an art gallery in Mumbai. Conceived as an experimental laboratory and incubator for young contemporary artists, over the years, it has platformed the works of artists such as Areez Katki, Sameer Kulavoor, Apnavi Makanji, Boshudhara Mukherjee and Ronny Sen.

At booth 1C42, Tarq presents 11th May 1980 Wedding Day (2024), a series of mixed-media works on recycled teak wood by Indian artist Saju Kunhan. Born in Kerala, Kunhan studied art in Thrissur and at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. His practice, at its core, is an inquiry into the past through a personal lens, understanding history as constitutive of collective memories. At Art Basel Hong Kong (ABHK), Kunhan’s exhibit features black-and-white photographs from a family wedding album, overlaid with bright paint and cartographic brass inlay. Using bright paint over image transfer is a significant departure for Kunhan. “Painting can reach where photography doesn't. There are moments when I'm not happy with the picture that was taken,” says Kunhan. The layered imagery reconciles issues of migration, displacement and the decaying passage of time, enlivening oral histories through a tactile emotional response.

STPI: Kim Lim

Established in 2002, Singapore’s STPI – Creative Workshop and Gallery seeks to inculcate an appreciation for art practices rooted in paper and print. Their booth, 1D04, brings together the works of well-known Asian artists, including the late Philippine-born Pacita Abad, Korean installation artist and sculptor Do Ho Suh and Singaporean artist Yanyun Chen.

In the Kabinett section, where galleries present capsule exhibitions, STPI presents a specially curated collection of print works honouring the modernist legacy of Singaporean-British artist Kim Lim. The artist left Singapore in 1954, aged 17, to study at St Martin’s School of Art and then the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She made prints throughout her career, alongside her sculptural work. Her work deftly explores space, organic forms and rhythm.

Anant Art: Aisha Khalid

New Delhi’s Anant Art, founded by Mamta Singhania, debuts at ABHK 2025 with a solo presentation of Pakistani artist Aisha Khalid in the Insights sector. A specialist in miniature painting, Khalid’s practice is informed by her personal experiences navigating gender dynamics and cultural contrasts between the East and the West.

Khalid works with Mughal hashiya floral motifs, placing symbols against sharp backgrounds to invite questions about authority and power. She "transforms wasli into an immersive field of enquiry", the press release notes. Her work is reflective of the neo-miniaturist movement in Pakistan, where artists work with a very traditional form to unpack the lived reality of contemporary society.

Ora-Ora: Fernando Botero

Ora-Ora is a Hong Kong-based contemporary art gallery founded in 2006. At booth 1B33, the gallery spotlights Colombian artist Fernando Botero, a painter and sculptor known for boterismo—his signature style of exaggerated volume, explosive hues and zesty compositions.

Financing his studies through a job as a newspaper illustrator, Botero moved to Madrid in the 1950s to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Inspired by the sun-soaked atmosphere, traditions and fiestas of his native Colombia, his style captures the human form with both reverence and satire. A highlight is The Saint (2014), a striking large-scale portrait of a woman in a bright yellow dress, red gloves and a halo above her hat, signifying his fascination with the female form at the intersection of the earthly and the divine.

The booth also features works by artists from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Europe and the United States, spanning digital art, sculpture and painting.

BANK: Lin Ke

Founded as a curatorial studio in Shanghai in 2013, BANK has since exhibited a wide range of artists, including Marina Abramović, Paul McCarthy, Isaac Julien, Xu Bing and Hito Steyerl. At this year’s edition, the gallery presents a diverse selection of works, ranging from Duyi Han’s textile installation to Tang Song’s feral, alcohol-spattered abstract paintings and Ching Ho Cheng’s meditative gouache works.

Among the highlights is Chinese artist Lin Ke, who is also presenting a concurrent solo exhibition at BANK’s space in Shanghai. Lin’s practice explores the materiality of virtual worlds, turning his laptop into both subject and medium while making himself his own guinea pig. In the Sky Painting series (2024), a spectral haze drifts over the canvas, dissolving the image into a ghostly apparition that wavers between presence and absence. Lin’s approach places computer software and poetry side by side, discovering a sense of pleasure when language—visual, digital and textual—is freed from its communicative functions.

Ames Yavuz: Pinaree Sanpitak

Ames Yavuz is a contemporary art gallery with spaces in Singapore and Sydney, 2025 marks its 12th year at ABHK. The gallery is presenting over 20 artists from across the world, including Vincent Namatjira from Australia, Alfredo Aquilizan from the Philippines and Thania Petersen from South Africa.

Its booth 1D33 is also the site for Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak’s explorations of the body, womanhood and nourishment. Sanpitak, who works from her studio in Bangkok, rose to prominence with Breast Works (1994), a series of sculptures that distil essential shapes from the female form and life. Her practice is underscored by a fascination with the body’s potential—its presence in space, the charged interactions it shares with others and the lived experience of a woman’s body. Silver Offering sees an enigmatic vessel occupying the frame in quiet strength and presence. Sanpitak’s work, emerging from a textured expanse, is a sensorial inquiry, unpacking concepts of gender, transformation, and the sacred and profane.

Richard Koh Fine Art: Htein Lin

Founded in 2005, Richard Koh Fine Art is a Southeast Asian contemporary art gallery with outposts in Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. Their lineup at ABHK 2025 features works that delve into memory, identity, socio-political narratives and the boundaries of painting. Among the showcased artists are London-born Gordon Cheung, Vietnamese artist Hoang Duong Cam, Thai painter Natee Utarit and Burmese performance artist Htein Lin, among others.

At Booth 1D43, Lin’s art mediates his personal history, political upheaval and Buddhist philosophy through expressive forms reflecting survival and resilience. His practice, shaped by his time as a political prisoner, spans painting, installation and performance, often using everyday objects and gestural strokes. Lin’s Hell and High Water 2 (2024) unfolds a web of fluid and dense entanglements represented by pulsating lines. Rendered on an undulating orange background, the figures appear in motion, some carrying burdens and others contorted in moments of distress.

Hakgojae: Ha Jung-woo

Established in Seoul in 1988, Hakgojae Gallery’s curatorial practice seeks to bridge the gap between Korea’s modern and contemporary history. The artists showcasing their works include South Korean feminist artist YUN Suknam, Korean-German artist Hyun-Sook Song and Chinese artist Jiang Heng, among others.

Their ABHK presentation includes Ha Jung-Woo, a visual artist, writer and widely known actor. His style is defined by an unrestrained approach to image-making inspired by figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat. Ha graduated from the Department of Theater and Film at Chung-Ang University and has starred in around 40 films including The Handmaiden (2016) and 1987: When the Day Comes (2017). Exposed to paintings from an early age through his father’s art collection, he naturally gravitated towards the medium, using it as a means to navigate the uncertainties of his twenties. In Untitled (2024), Ha uses mixed media on canvas to create a rhythmic interplay of geometric patterns. The layered composition reveals organic motifs, replete with texture and entropy.

(Text by Prachi Satrawal, Intern at STIR)