“it’s a spell that brings positive energy, courage, joy and love.”

Peter Wu, who works under the name BIKUTAMALAMIA, is a Hong Kong-based artist whose practice spans painting, photography, and mixed media. He received his Master of Fine Arts (DNSEP) from the École supérieure des beaux-arts du Mans in France, and participated in the Erasmus exchange program at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. His seven years of living and working in France profoundly shaped his cross-cultural sensibility and interdisciplinary approach.

Grounded in his belief that art and life are inseparable, Wu’s work is defined by surreal, frameless compositions and a vivid use of colour, which he treats as a conduit between inner imagination and external reality. His practice invites the audience into a space that is at once introspective and playfully aware, drawing the ordinary and the subconscious into quiet proximity. By extending his visual language into everyday objects, Wu challenges the conventional divide between fine art and daily life, allowing his work to move beyond the exhibition space and into lived experience.

At the core of Wu's practice lies a sustained reflection on intimacy. For Wu, intimacy encompasses not only closeness but also distance; it is a connection defined by an unseen boundary. Language, exposure, and exchange may appear to be acts of communication, yet beneath them persists something that resists full disclosure, a delicate space between the self and the other that can never be entirely crossed. Working primarily in oil pastel, a medium whose inherent softness resists hard edges and fixed contours, he builds surfaces in which forms seem to approach one another without quite merging. Colour bleeds, shapes lean, and boundaries dissolve and re-form. In this way, the material itself enacts what Wu is exploring: the condition of nearness without merger, where closeness and distance coexist, neither dissolving the other.

Wu’s work emerges from the tension between freedom and solitude, moving between approaching and retreating, merging and preserving, revealing and concealing. This reflection extends into the physical and spiritual realms, where creation becomes a process of seeking wholeness within fragmentation, and rhythm within imbalance. In his practice, stillness is not stagnation but a form of attentive witnessing; solitude is not absence, but a mode of waiting. In silence, Wu continues to listen for possibilities not yet articulated, allowing new forms to gradually emerge.

Currently based in Hong Kong, Wu continues to explore the emotional and transformative potential of colour, form, and perception. He has participated in a range of exhibitions and cross-disciplinary projects, with collaborations including Sulwhasoo, NIKE, JOYCE, SALLYcoco, and Stain+.