painting

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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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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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