Marcos Kueh, an Amsterdam-based artist originally from Malaysia, creates striking industrially woven tapestries that fuse traditional Southeast Asian craft techniques with contemporary visual languages. Drawing on the aesthetics of commercial advertising, Kueh uses the medium of the woven banner to explore themes of identity, cultural displacement, and the elusive concept of "home."

In this body of work, Kueh presents a series of woven “advertisements” featuring the Virgin Mary, figures that interrogate the visual politics of religion and its role in shaping collective belief systems. These works are not simply devotional; rather, they examine how religious imagery, like commercial branding, is localized, adapted, and repurposed to suit different cultural contexts. Specifically, Kueh focuses on historical moments when depictions of the Virgin Mary were tailored to align with the social and aesthetic norms of various Southeast Asian communities.

By filtering religious iconography through the lens of advertising, Kueh critiques the commodification of both faith and identity. His tapestries play with irony, nostalgia, and sincerity, revealing how visual culture can both construct and obscure meaning. Kueh’s work ultimately questions what it means to belong in a world shaped by colonial histories, migration, and global capitalism. Through his inventive blending of the sacred, the commercial, and the handcrafted, he opens space for nuanced reflection on how cultural narratives are formed, preserved, and sold.