In 2012 Tom Mu came to Belfast to study. Ten years later, he’s still here. What began as a move to a new country quietly became something deeper — a life shaped by two cultures that don’t always fit together neatly.

He’s been drawn to painting for as long as he can remember. There was always something about it that felt manageable when other things didn’t. The outside world can be hard to control — painting was a place where that pressure eased a little. Less noise, more clarity.

His work brings together Asian ink painting and Western abstraction. It started as an experiment, a way of asking whether two very different visual traditions could share the same space. But it became about more than style. It became about what it actually feels like to live between two worlds — the uncertainty, the not quite fitting in, and slowly finding something honest in that.

Ten years in Belfast have left a mark too. The city has its own layered history and quiet complexity, and that has found its way into how Tom sees and works.

He recently received support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and is currently showing work at The Yard Gallery in Holywood.