project

28
Oct
2022
Heri Kris

Heri Kris

Heri Kris studied at FSRD ISI Yogyakarta in 1986. He is regarded one of the important contemporary artists in Indonesia. His first solo exhibition outside Indonesia was in Germany in 1994. Heri Kris participated in several group exhibitions such not only in Indonesia but also in Denmark and The Netherlands (by Gallery Lukisan, Amsterdam). 
Although his neo-expressionistic boldly coloured works show influences by the (outsider) artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, they are not necessarily political. The works focus mainly on the visual effects. Unlike the artist Heri Kris himself who is a fierce advocate of individual freedom. 
Nowadays Heri Kris works mainly on canvas and is experimenting with sculpture.

Born:
Yogyakarta May 28, 1967

Education:
Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) Jogjakarta Indonesia jurusan seni rupa (seni lukis/FSRD)

Artworks by Heri Kris

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28
Oct
2022
Afdhal

Afdhal

Afdhal experiments with non-traditional combinations of materials – sponge, silicon caulk sealant, paint and electricity cables. Many times he also uses waste materials in his artworks. Living in Yogyakarta with his young family, not far from the ever active volcano Mount Merapi, Afdhal is much concerned with the environment, especially with the relation of human to the nature. It is a delicate balance that easily tips to other side of the scale.

Afdhal makes installations, paintings and sculptures to depict this vulnerability and insignificance of human. He creates figurative sculptures without faces postured as if deep in thought. His larger paintings many times depict large animals in a surreal environment, surrounded by mysterious mathematical objects. There are fine lines leading to celestial bodies or simply spanning across the canvas. The animal figures while undoubtedly are symbols of strength, are set against tiny human figures or manly created objects. One could wonder who is more vulnerable; Nature of Human…

His art gains more recognition not only in Indonesia but also outside the country (Singapore, The Netherlands, Belgium). Afdhal recently also makes small works in wooden frames or plexi glass boxes – again using many artificial materials, as if to stress the artificiality of current human existence.

Born:
29 March, 1981 in Dumai, Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia

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

Artworks by Afdhal

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28
Oct
2022
S.E. Dewantoro

S.E. Dewantoro

S.E. (Gepeng) Dewantoro’s bizarre drawings and artworks explore and question the relationship of man (human) with his surroundings. A complicated strings of web and thoughts about existence, politics, religion. His depictions of bare flesh and human bodies are intense and some challenge the tough Indonesian censorship.

Though he explores different media and materials, working on paper has his preference. He draws directly and almost instantaneously on the paper, connecting the lines and figures he has meticulously imagined in his head.

Next to a fine-art artist, Gepeng Dewantoro is also a performance and theatre artist in Bandung, Indonesia.

Born:
31 December 1972, Solo, Indonesia

Education:
Seni Rupa at The Universitas Negeri Sebelas Maret (UNS)

Artworks by S.E. Dewantoro

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28
Oct
2022
Ronald Apriyan

Ronald Apriyan

Ronald Apriyan has long been active in the art world and is himself a talented artist. Although his style gradually changes during his lifetime as an artist, his works of art bare witness of his relentless and continuous pursue of expressing (his longing of) the idealistic life in the ever changing surroundings around his home in Yogyakarta. The development and progress have not only changed the landscape of the island rapidly, but also mean a permanent change of the quality of life. The change does not necessary mean worse life condition, but since villages, rice fields and green forests become concrete buildings and houses, people are struggling to find the balance financially as well socially in the tinier free space.

The abrupt change of his art recently has not gone unnoticed and he gains much appreciation in the art world in not only Indonesia but also abroad, with the latest successes in Singapore and Hong Kong. Although it definitely marks the new era in his works of art, at the very essence the paintings reflect the artist’s true himself.

Born:
Prabumulih (Southern Sumatra), 29 April 1979

Education:
Padjadjaran University Bandung
Sarjanawiyata Taman Siswa University Yogyakarta
Indonesia Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta

Artworks by Ronald Apriyan

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28
Oct
2022
Abdi Setiawan

Abdi Setiawan

Abdi Setiawan’s work is installation-based, and features half or life-size sculptures of everyday Indonesians in various social settings. A very skillful wood carver, he makes mainly wooden sculptures along with fibre glass hand-painted unique replicas or editions. His rendering of the figures are not only realistic but also infused with humorous satire.

Born:
29 Desember 1971, Pariaman, Sumatera Barat, Indonesia

Education:
ISI Yogyakarta, Jurusan Seni Kriya, 2003

Abdi Setiawan’s sculptures return to the skill of wood carving while deploying the artist’s entire imagination and perception to depict the Indonesian human figure. The work takes form as a spatial arrangement, which presents the atmosphere of a city corner such as a waiting room, bus terminal or shopping mall; a representation of a fragment of the activities of city dwellers – which wait, come and go – just wryly. The realistic rendering of the figures pokes us with satire so that we smile away our embarrassment in recognising our own behaviour reflected. Today’s life and culture are those of the city – with all its complexity of problems: population explosion, insufficient dwelling space, transportation, excessive consumption, crime and poverty. The advancement of modernity and its related humanitarian problems are becoming obvious in urban life. Direct involvement in attempt to familiarise himself with the atmospheres of certain corners of the city as well as the characters of the people there, almost always prevails in Setiawan’s process of making works. Setiawan understands the emotional experiences that have their shares in shaping the characters of the figures he intends to offer by means of his sculptures. However, in the making and finishing of his works the artist transcends the experiences and observations. He knows he needs to add his personal interpretations and judgments to the various recorded physiognomic data of his figures. He reclaims his humanitarian intention and interest to critically understand what is going on around him. And he has to deal with discovering and defining the various formal aspects in his works so as to contain all his ideas and thoughts. Abdi Setiawan carefully calculates the elements necessary to represent in his sculpture figures. The teak wood he carves roughly so as to produce unlevelled surface. The acrylic colours enforced to mix on the surface of the polyester casts of his wood sculptures are effecting detailed accessories and clothing, and through gestures and poses (arms crossed, gripping a hand phone), facial expressions, gazes and glances – all elements which add to the rich physiognomic images in his works. Tattoos, clothing patterns and brands, graphical T-shirt imprints and other attributes from popular culture make strong references to art history. Not always Setiawan feels the need to give his figures life sizes. He has already arrived at the plane where he gives prominence to rich physiognomic images rather than merely anatomic precisions. – Enin Supriyanto

Artworks by Abdi Setiawan

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28
Oct
2022
M.A. Roziq

M.A. Roziq

M.A. Roziq sees the photography as a way to express his thoughts and imagination rather than capturing lights and events. One of his teachers at the Photography Academy was Iswanto Soerjanto, a photographer also represented by Gallery Lukisan.

Roziq expresses his concern on the degrading life environment by using metaphors built up from ordinary daily objects and toys. Sometimes he chooses the subjects of his photography covered in fluffy, but volatile and short-lived soap bubbles, while the other times the subjects are completely frozen in ice. Before Roziq can make even photograph of the iced objects, he must first of all make the ice made of pure of coloured frozen water. He creates ice cubes, smooth blocks, shapes and even complete elaborated sculptures. The translucent ice gives a fascinating look to the sealed objects, distorts the image but also enhances the contrast by the quality of light, blurring their original purpose and giving them different meaning.

By choosing ice as a symbol of preserving, Roziq finds a way to comment on the current societal questions in a fresh and humorous manner. No wonder that he has been selected several times to exhibit his works at the ArtJog, the most important contemporary art festival in Indonesia.

Born:
Lampung, 28 September 1978

Education:
2002 Diploma Fine Art Photography, Akademi Desain Visi Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Artworks by M.A. Roziq

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28
Oct
2022
Yoga Mahendra

Yoga Mahendra

The works by Yoga Mahendra show the influence and the artist’s affinity with hardrock, comic strips and science-fiction.

Mahendra makes bizarre and richly imaginative paintings with grotesque figures built by other smaller figures or objects. The clusters of the figures are similar to pareidolia in the paintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, combined with Piranesian absurd and hellish world.

Come closer and one will soon find out. The main subject of the painting then appears to be a compound of roads, houses, ladders and bizarre objects. Street lanterns jutting out through the anatomy of the bodies. Eyes appear to be inlets of jet engines and some of the ribs are actually stairs leading to another room filled with bizarre objects. The roads are scattered with automotive machines, and little figures can be seen clinging and climbing the ladders. The houses are filled with struggling, laughing, drunken, happy and mad figures, playing music of enjoying themselves..

The particularly special artwork titled “I Stay”, inspired by his mentor Ojite Budi Sutarno, consists of different shaped, painted panels. The hybrid artwork which keeps between sculpture and painting, resembles Garuda, the state symbol of the Republic Indonesia. Garuda is a mythological figure found in Hindu and Buddhism legends and essentially seen as a protector with power and is shown either in the form of a giant bird with (partially) open wings, or a mix of form of bird with some human features. The Indonesian national airline is also called after it.

Yoga Mahendra some exhibitions and events in but also outside Indonesia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea. Currently active in a local artists group in Malang called Portal.

Born:
4 February, 1982 in Malang, Jawa Timur (East Java), Indonesia

Education:
Desain Komunikasi Visual – Universitas Negeri Malang, East Java, Indonesia

Artworks by Yoga Mahendra

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28
Oct
2022
Agung Kurniawan

Agung Kurniawan

Agung Kurniawan is one of the most important contemporary artists of Indonesia. He is an artist who works with a variety of media. Agung Kurniawan has developed his artistic work within the field of concrete socio-cultural activism; he believes an artist has more and larger social responsibilities than simply producing artistic work. His traditional medium is drawing, but lately he works actively with performance art and videography. Although he works with performance art, he refuses to be called as a performer, and preferred to call himself as the director of the crowds in stead. Both as a studio artist and an art activist, he takes up clear positions and his approach often leads him either down to street level or to intervening in bureaucratic structures.

Agung Kurniawan’s work is reputed to be fairly “coarse” due to themes of violence, controversial politics and taboo subjects. The artist started out with book illustrations, drawings and comics, which offered a harsh, often satirical critique of Indonesian society at that time. With his drawing Happy Victim (1996), depicting people hanging upside down while laughing cheerfully, he won a 1996 Philip Morris Art Award and gained international recognition.

His famous trellis works series started in 2006. The series was inspired by an old family photo album from 1974, consisting of a photo diary of the artist’s mother during the last days of her dying father. Agung tried to recreate the personal as well collective memories by working the panels as a kind of comic book where the trellises are the contours of the figures and the shadows cast the blurred memory.

Agung Kurniawan co-founded “Indonesian Visual Art Archive” (IVAA) and co-owner of Kedai Kebun Forum (KKF) in Yogyakarta. His works are to be found worldwide mostly in museums e.g. Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Van Abbe Museum (Eindhoven, The Netherlands), Singapore Art Museum, as well as in private collection. His recent works include his performance in The Netherlands “Remember Day Parade and after”, during the so-called transHISTORY (Arnhem June 2016) and his video art during the Europalia Festival 2017 (Paleis voor Schone Kunsten / BOZAR / Centre for Fine Art Brussels, Belgium).

Artist’s Statement 2015 (in Bahasa Indonesia, freely translated)

– Tidak ada yang lebih berharga dari seni, kalau ada itupun pasti palsu (Nothing is more truthful than art, if there is any, then it is false)
– Cinta itu sementara, kesepian itu abadi (Love is temporary, Loneliness is forever)
– Kemiskinan adalah ibu tiri seni kontemporer (Poverty is the stepmother of contemporary art)

Born:
14 March, 1968 in Jember, Jawa Timur (East Java), Indonesia

Education:
Archeology, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (not graduated)
Graphic Art Faculty, Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI), Yogyakarta, Indonesia (not graduated)

Artworks by Agung Kurniawan

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28
Oct
2022
Agus Prasetyo

Agus Prasetyo

Agus Prasetyo’s artworks are an interesting mix of different media. Paintings of wood block prints, mixed media (textile, paper) on canvas.

Although Agus Prasetyo creates paintings nowadays, he used to make woodblock prints. Wood-block printing is an ancient method to produce repetitive motifs or text on paper or textiles. This method were used to make hand-printed batik, until the stamps were replaced by brass and other metals to make them more durable and allowing more details.

In his new works Agus Prasetyo recycles in a way his old works, or more specifically fragments of his older woodblock print works, with pieces of different kind of textiles, threads and paper, finished by lines drawn by him with drawing or marker pen.
The paintings are compound of interesting, abstract and colourful blobs, sometimes in the shapes of living organisms or even daily objects.

Born:
3 September 1976 in Rembang, Middle Java, Indonesia

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

Artworks by Agus Prasetyo

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