This October, AndrewShire Gallery brings a group of Southeast Asia's most highly acclaimed painters to Los Angeles for the first time.

Southeast Asia has long been recognized by the international art community as a vital and unique hub in global contemporary art practice. In the past few years, contemporary Southeast Asian art has also rapidly gained an international following in the market.

The exhibition Humanities introduces the work of Ben Cabrera, Ahmad Zakii Anwar and Putu Sutawijaya. These three artists come from three different countries and three different generations of artists, yet all have achieved broad acclaim through the Southeast Asian region, leading the way in figurative painting.

Ben Cabrera, or ‘Bencab’, as he is better known, is one of the youngest artists to be recognized as a National Artist of the Philippines, a rare and prestigious accolade. Born in 1942 in the Philippines, Bencab emerged as a fresh and powerful force in the Social Realist movement which dominated Filipino art in 1970s and 1980s, moving on to become one of the Philippines' most esteemed figurative artists.

Ahmad Zakii Anwar was born in 1955 in Johor, Malaysia, began exhibiting in the 1990s in Malaysia, and has gone on to carve out a formidable reputation throughout the region and beyond, holding successful exhibitions in Singapore, Jakarta, Hong Kong and New York.

Putu Sutawijaya, a Balinese artist based in Yogyakarta, was born in 1971, and is a leading light within a fast-rising generation of contemporary Indonesian artists.

The body has many different aspects and meanings in Southeast Asian cultures, ancient, historical and modern, which inform and enrich the practice of figurative art in the region. The exhibition Humanities investigates the different ways in which three major artists explore the human body as a central theme of their artistic vision. Drawing from international, eastern and regional figurative art traditions, Bencab, Ahmad Zakii Anwar and Putu Sutawijaya have each created a powerful physical language in their painting. In their work with the human body, we find theatre and spirituality, struggle and harmony between the inner and cyclical forces of life.