artist

28
Oct
2022
Arwin Hidayat

Arwin Hidayat

Arwin Hidayat combines primitive and contemporary motifs for his works on paper and in his paintings, and also by folk art inspired refined unique batik pieces. Although many of his works are inspired by his personal experiences and thoughts, his works of art can be seen as a subtle manner to pose questions about socio-economic and moral situation in Indonesia.

Arwin Hidayat loves the medium batik. It is traditionally a method to decorate cloth with motifs, pattern or designs using colour dyes and wax. It requires quite an elaborate manner of painting (writing) by hand, unlike the modern printed textile production for the mass. Although the method can be found in many places in (South-East) Asia, in Java especially this method of cloth decorating has found its high refinement, where every motive has its own meanings, and whom are allowed to use depending on the gender and even ranks of social and heritage. The traces of these batik paintings can be found in his works on paper.

Arwin Hidayat’s artworks have been selected several times for ArtJog, the annual & prestigious contemporary art exhibition in Yogyakarta.

Born:
12 April, 1983 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Education:
Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI), Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Artworks by Arwin Hidayat

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28
Oct
2022
Prihatmoko Moki

Prihatmoko Moki

Prihatmoko Moki is a print & silk-screen artist and one of the founders of the Krack! Studio (2012), a studio and gallery focusing on printmaking in Yogyakarta. Other founders are Rudi Hermawan, Sukma Smitha and Australian artist Malcolm Smith. In the same year he was also one of the organisers of LELAGU, an annual art event combining acoustic music and responses with live drawing in Kedai Kebun Gallery, Yogyakarta.

Although he does make solitary prints, drawings, theatre performance and murals, most of his works are series of comic strip silk-screen prints of certain situations. A satirical story telling not always necessarily as criticism but to shine light to the complexity of the matters.

In his works, Moki refers to historical events and myths to approach the issues. He depicts distinctive figures identified from footmen, soldiers to courtiers of the Jogja Kraton (the sultan’s palace) and people wearing everyday’s clothes looking like peasants, placed in a contemporary scene mixed with traditional or symbolic attributes from the glorious past. The whole scene is a metaphor of the hierarchical and sometimes strained relationship between the ruler(s) or people in power and the regular people.

Moki has participated in numerous group national and international exhibitions. He has also been an long and active member of multidisciplinary PUNKASILA art project, initiated by Danius Kesminas, which has performed in Indonesia, Australia, Lithuania and Cuba.

Born:
1982

Education:
Printmaking at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta (Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta, ISI Yogyakarta)

Artworks by Prihatmoko Moki

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28
Oct
2022
Nguyễn Dinh Vu

Nguyễn Dinh Vu

Vietnamese painting is mainly a twentieth century phenomenon. In contrast to other Asian countries, Vietnamese artists in the feudal period did not practise the art of painting, but devoted themselves to sculpture and the decoration of temples and pagodas. At the end of the nineteenth century, the French introduced the technique of oil-painting to Vietnam and in 1925 they established the ‘Ecole des Beaux-Art l’Indochine’ in Hanoi. This marks the beginnings of a professional class of painters, who painted ‘after nature’ in a realistic and impressionistic style.

After the war against France, the separation of North and South Vietnam in 1954, followed by the war between the North and the South, the artists followed completely different courses. The artists from the North (under influence of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China) turned in the direction of the social-realistic stream, while the southern artists embraced western trends, influenced by the presence of the Americans. Nevertheless, neither the influences was decisive in the development of Vietnamese Modern Art.

Despite the “Doi Moi”, Vietnam’s Perestroika – which allowed contemporary Vietnamese artists more freedom, was introduced in 1986, most of the artists did not direct their attention to the (western) preoccupation with changing of the frontiers of Vietnamese art. Combining traditional methods on modern materials like lacquer on wood, using (traditional) motifs and techniques, the younger generation of Vietnamese artists have gone throught a revival of the use of traditional elements in stead, involving different forms of arts, such as installation, performance and video art.

Nguyen Dinh Vu combines materials as metaphor for the layers of history. Old newspaper often forms a second base on his canvas. The figures in blue and white have resemblance with the antique Chinese porcelain. His famous metaphoric man in suits with golden box head surrounded by Chinese/Vietnamese motifs slowly make room for more impasto* abstract works.

In fine art, the Italian word ‘Impasto’ (dough or paste) denotes a painting technique in which undiluted paint is applied so thickly (like toothpaste) onto the canvas or panel (often with a palette knife) that it stands out from the surface.

Born:
1980 in Thai Nguyen, Vietnam
Lives and works in Hanoi

Education:
Vietnam University of Fine Arts (2013)

Artworks by Nguyen Dinh Vu

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28
Oct
2022
Herlambang Bayu Aji

Herlambang Bayu Aji

Herlambang Bayu Aji is originally from Indonesia, but works and lives since 2010 in Berlin, Germany. He works with various techniques and art genres such as shadow puppets, paintings, education art, installation and graphic art. 

Herlambang Bayu Aji developed a strong interest in the traditional Indonesian shadow puppet theatre. Shadow puppet performance, also known as shadow puppetry or shadow play, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment, found from as far as to the West as Turkey and all over Asia. The narratives and these performances are often humorous and entertaining, and can be regarded as a kind of societal-critical cabaret.

Next to art exhibitions, the artist also uses his storytelling and performance skills on various art workshops and theater performances, as entertainment as well as education for children and adults, many times in collaboration with other artists.

Since 2016 he is working on a series of works titled Animalgination. The title is rooted in the two words “animal” and “imagination”, and as such is the output of his plays and imagination of new animals which do not exist in real life. 

The artist believes that everything is changing. The climate is changing and sooner or later forcing nature to change as well. The gobal warming threatens plants, land creatures and aquatic animals with extinction and pushes the environment to adapt those changes in many ways. Unusual attitudes of animals, awaking small plants or microorganisms in the land which have been covered by ice for thousands of years and even mutated viruses.

Animalgination provides the opportunity to create fictional forms of animals, like an elephant with a rabbit’s body and a crocodile’s tail, a flying cow with butterfly wings and a mackerel’s head, or a pig with an eel’s tail. The series symbolises, that every single person is changing during their life. These changes influence the people around that person and in turn is influenced by them as well. There are no absolute criteria to define identities, as identities are fluid and interdependent.

Animalgination is executed in linocut using oil paints on paper, painting with acrylic on canvas and an installation of paintings, papercuts, paper mâché, sounds and various natural materials.

Born:
21 May, 1982 in Solo/Surakarta, Indonesia

Education:
Master of Arts, Institute for Art in Context, University of Arts, Berlin
Bachelor of Arts, Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta 

Artworks by Herlambang Bayu Aji

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28
Oct
2022
Ayu Arista Murti

Ayu Arista Murti

Ayu Arista Murti is one of the few female artists in Indonesia. Her works evolve around the theme of love and harmony among living organisms. “Nature, in all of her aspects, is beautiful”.

In her creative process to achieve an art work, the intellectual thoughts as well as natural processes are equally important. She absorbs things from different sources and let herself inspired by manga comics, but also writings and books.

Ayu Arista Murti intentionally chooses different environment and weather conditions in and around her studio to allow nature directly influence the result of her works. The elements like sun rays, wind or breeze, damp or water, dust or dirt should make an integral part of the end result. Working with many kinds of media at the same time, Ayu will sometimes work under the glaring tropical sun to allow the paint to dry quickly. She will then bring the painting to a more shadowed area to allow strongly diluted paint to spread and dry its transparent layer on the canvas. And these will later on be coloured and modified with soft pastel, charcoal, dust or dirt. And a piece of cloth, metal or wire will later be applied.

Ayu’s concerns about the genetic manipulation culminated in the Cloning Series, in the (resin) sculptures, paintings and drawings. However, her positive approach still shows the Deformed organisms in their beauty in stead.

Born:
14 December, 1979, in Surabaya, East-Java, Indonesia

Education:
2004 – Graduated from Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI), Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Artworks by Ayu Arista Murti

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28
Oct
2022
Soni Irawan

Soni Irawan

As an artist with a formal art education and as a musician, (he was one of the founders of Yogyakarta experimental band Seek Six Sick), Soni Irawan has different approach to create his artworks.

His art is greatly influenced by the spirit and energy of rock music, but also his printmaking background, especially in the creation of woodcut prints. His paintings on canvas or wood pieces are filled with spontaneous brush strokes and have sketchy street-art appearance. The subject matters are however largely personal, revolve around his family, his social environment and an effort to capture the spirit of human survival in everyday life.

Rather than painting a depth impression of gradual colour changes or shadows, he uses main and unmixed colours for his objects, that are laid over each other in a free composition. The roughness of the lines of these subjects and forms are inherent to his expressive primitivism woodcut prints. Unlike the relatively more free handpainting, and inherent to the process of the making of woodcut prints, the artist needs not only to think about the image but also how to build up the image using the different wood carved blocks for different colouring etc to achieve the images as an artwork entity.

Born:
15 January 1975, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Education:
Visual Art Faculty, Fine Art Department, Printmaking, Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI), Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Artworks by Soni Irawan

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28
Oct
2022
Ida Bagus Putu Purwa

Ida Bagus Putu Purwa

Ida Bagus Putu Purwa’s (or shortly Purwa) concept of art works is his continuous search of freedom. His paintings speak about human bodies in a true search and longing for freedom, realising that human existence or ones’ due rights was given to them since birth.

Although the subjects in the paintings sometime take different shape or posture, they are in fact an expression of himself. For this reason the figures are embodiments of the artist himself. His works are expression of this quest to freedom and a reflection of the suffering of this urge to realise his dream.

Wearing mask or face painted to hide agony, jumping high or almost disappear to the side while running, the figures move till the edge of the canvas (or paper) as if they are looking to break out of the frame, looking for freedom outside their confined edges. Inspired by the traditional Balinese dance, the figures appear to dance with vigorous movements, expressing anger and frustration. Sometime those figures stand precariously close to the edge of an imaginary cliff with unknown depth.

The figures somehow seem to realise their own physical limitations and destiny if you like and thus reflects a struggle for self-acceptance, perhaps resignation.

Abounding with heightened emotions and rich cultural traditions, Purwa’s stylised figures draw upon the diversity and vibrancy of his background. Graceful composition showing vulnerable strength and light-footed postures bear the weight of mental burden.

Born:
Sanur, 1 October 1977

Education:
STSI, Denpasar, Bali

Artworks by Ida Bagus Putu Purwa

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28
Oct
2022
Iswanto Soerjanto

Iswanto Soerjanto

Iswanto Soerjanto has been working for more than 2 decades as an advertising photographer but is seeking to find other forms of photography. As an experienced photographer he makes high quality photos. His interest in the history of photography and techniques leading him to experiment with the medium, stepping outside the traditional boundary of the modern digital camera.

While other photography artists experimenting with the digital forms of photography, Iswanto Soerjanto goes back to the old camera obscura, antique tintype photography, glass photographic plates eventually omitting the negatives, and using unusual chemicals and different ways of processing the photo-sensitive paper. The majority of his artworks consist of chemigrams and cyanotypes, created with techniques and philosophy rooted in oriental culture.

Chemigram (link to Wikipedia for the definition) is a method to produce work on photo-sensitive paper using all kinds of chemicals with or without light exposure. Due to the absence of physical or digital negatives (or positives) there is no possibility to reproduce or reprint the photos, hence the works are all unique pieces.

Cyanotye is a photographic process that produces a cyan-blue print. While cyanotype method allows reproduction from drawings, other printed media or many sorts of other materials, due to the method of creating the artwork, most of the cyanotype artworks are also unique pieces. Note that all Iswanto Soerjanto’s cyanotype works are unique pieces.

Born:
1967

Education:
Law School
Brooks Institute of Photography, California, USA

Artworks by Iswanto Soerjanto

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28
Oct
2022
Hengki Koentjoro

Hengki Koentjoro

Hengki Koentjoro is an award-winning and accomplished fine-art and landscape photographer, specialising in capturing the spectral domain amidst the shades of black and white. Born in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia, he proceeded to pursue further education in Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California; an expedition that plunged him into the professional arena of video production and fine art photography. Childhood introduction to camera on his 11th birthday is by now an earnest love affair that involves an elaborate choreography of composition, texture, shapes and lines.

Upon his return to Indonesia, Hengki settles in Jakarta as a freelance videographer and video editor for nature documentaries and corporate profiles. Delving into what he believes to be his true purpose in life’s journey of expression, he indulges himself in the art of black and white photography on the side. Exploring along the borderlines of light and shadow, yin and yang. Celebrating complexity in the minimalist, while diving into the spiritual in the physical.

Hengki Koentjoro is named one of Hasselblad Ambassadors.

“Photography can never be separated from the aspects of making the common things unusual, welcoming the unexpected, indulging and embracing ourselves with the joy of photography”—Hengki Koentjoro, 2013

Born:
24 March, 1963 in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia

Education:
Kanisius High School, 1977 – 1981 — Jakarta, Indonesia
Brooks Institute of Photography, 1987 – 1990 — California, USA

Website: 
www.hengki-koentjoro.com

Hasselblad Ambassador:
www.hasselblad.com/ambassadors/hengki-koentjoro/

Artworks by Hengki Koentjoro

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28
Oct
2022
S. Dwi Stya Acong

S. Dwi Stya Acong

The works of art of S. Dwi Stya Acong are surrealistic-impressionistic landscapes in which light is captured in short, unblended brushstrokes in vibrant colours and yet subdued contrasts.

A recurring theme of the works of S. Dwi Stya Acong, an anonymous lone figure, often man, standing many times turned away from the observant, appears to be out of place within the careful composition and particularly haunting landscape, where there is little sense of time all the more an abundance of space. The refined figure is in stark contrast with the absurd world, where chaos seems to be ordered and controlled by hope and suppressed optimism, reflects both vulnerability and strength simultaneously.

S. Dwi Stya Acong is a well established contemporary artist from East-Java. Het received formal art education at the ISI (Institut Senirupa Indonesia), the Indonesia Institute of the Art in Yogyakarta, after which he gains many international interest. His works have been exhibited at numerous international exhibitions in Asia (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, China and Taiwan), Europe (The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland) but also in American continent (Brazil).

Born:
26 March 1977, in Malang, East Java, Indonesia

Education:
Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI), Yogyakarta, Indonesia (1994-2003)

Artworks by S. Dwi Stya Acong

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28
Oct
2022
Indra Dodi

Indra Dodi

Indra Dodi makes an effort to simulate childlike drawings and joyous spontaneity on his usually large canvases with expressive, art brut, naïve style but with a refined manner. The layered colours, the notion of composition and structures, together with the detailed figures which appear to have their own characters, reveal the careful thought behind his paintings.

A graduate of the prestigious Indonesian art college in Yogyakarta, ISI (Indonesian Institute of the Arts), and a pupil of Yunizar, his works have been exhibited abroad, as far as The Netherlands and Germany. With already some solo and group exhibitions in Asia, in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, The Philippines and of course Indonesia, Indra Dodi is one of the most successful Indonesian contemporary artists.

The smaller works are specially made for outside Indonesia and framed in beautiful (teak) wooden frame.

Born:
1 January, 1980 in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia

Education:
Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI), Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Leather Academy (Akademi Teknologi Kulit), Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Sarjana Wiata Institut Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Artworks by Indra Dodi

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