Seni Nusantara (Art from The Archipelago) features artworks by 16 artists from Indonesia and Malaysia. With emphasis on curating a common narrative on the back of strong craftsmanship, the art from both countries will tell a story about the psyche of the archipelago—shared natural world, lingua franca, rituals, traditions, past history and civilizations, and of spirits and ghosts, magic and superstitions juxtaposed with technological advances, and dreams of humanity in multi-alternate versions of the future; or perhaps they are visions of alternative world beyond what the eyes can see.
Maritime South East has been the crossroads for human migration and conquest and therefore has absorbed a lot of influences from around the world since antiquity.
Whether it is trade, sword and blood or holy scripture, these have come waves after waves, layers after layers—and gone, and perhaps this cycle will continue. Art and lore arose and developed from this.
If the history had worked out differently, Indonesia and Malaysia might have been one country, or remained as many separate kingdoms, but ones which share many similarities despite the diversity.
There are over 700 spoken languages in Indonesia and 137 in Malaysia, all of which are united under two national languages which are very similar.
The blood of art and craft runs deep in people of South East Asia. Throughout this curation process I’ve been surprised by just how many of them are not full time artists, or are practitioners of art who do a wide variety of things. Most are self-taught with a wide ranging variety of blue collar and white collar day jobs.
It’s a bit like those movies where someone goes to some random neighbourhood and throws out a challenge for a fight only to discover that every regular looking folk, young or old, are high level martial art masters.
I first encountered the works of Arttech several years ago and was entranced by the world he was building in the illustrations. Arttech himself is an enigma, always fully covered from head to toe and whose face has never been seen in public. He’s also a drummer in a rock band.
In his art, the scenes and clothings will all looked so similiar to South East Asian eyes, yet not as they are so infused with imagined technology, melding aesthetics of the past with an imaginary world of the future. In his own words “Through symbolism and juxtaposition of religion and technology, my recent pieces are an exploration of the intersection of our historical roots and the ever-advancing digital era. A snapshot of our post-internet culture, told through the lens of a traditional soul. As we are living in a Cybercult era, my artworks served as a reflection of how religiously devoted we are to our technology.”
Which brings us to epic diagrammatic works of Ilham.
Just enjoy the vast sweeping vista of his pieces, so rich and complex in visual story telling. You need not know much about the region he lives in, as the art do inform with elements of the archipelago’s architecture like the curvilinear roofs of the Minangkabau people which resembles buffalo horns (tribal name means the buffalo that won). Yet each of his art pieces do get injected with elements of the fantastical like floating islands and eyes in the sky from beyond the cosmos.
Then in another art work you see the foreign influences in the shape of the onion domed mosques, an import from the west, but now nestling in a tropical monsoon jungle environment as it’s home . As he said:
“I am surrounded by lots of culture with so much diversity. I have a sacred purpose to explore and create art about all the tribes and cultures in Indonesia”
Juxtaposing Ilham’series of work is the work by architect-turned-artist Syazwan, better known as Akuesyazwan (which actually means ‘I am Syazwan’ in the malay language).
Utilizing isometric drawings he creates entire worlds that I’d argue could be either be dreams of a Sci-fi version of maritime South East Asia, or even a future possibility of maritime South East Asia.
Just look through his portfolio and you’d be drawn in: City blocks standing on stilts over water, or revealed through undulating clouds in the sky, or city blocks that forgot it’s urban wildlife and trees, humanity grinding through massive traffic jams, humanity living in cells within those mega city blocks. However it turns out, he reckons that it will always be home sweet home.
Staying on the topic of the built environment:
Wiryawan Purboyo aka Wiwitaek utilizes the dimensionality of buildings and rooms to explore the different compartments of the human psyche.
He considers himself a surrealist in which he collides fact and fiction together. Not afraid to mine the books of thinkers of Nietzsche and Kafka to help him dive deeper into the mind in the form of endless rooms and mysteries, I am also not afraid to compare him to the surrealist film maker David Lynch, albeit a David Lynch of the illustrated medium.
Are these the dreams of just one man, or is it the dreams of a man who is a product of Nusantara tradition, culture and history?
Bringing us back to the present and the past is Sanuri Zulkefli.
Another self taught artist, his works are very much immersed in the folklore of the region and which are often populated by scenes of tropical environment, be they man made or natural, and usually juxtaposed by the whimsical.
Working as a semiconductor testing engineer by day has probably helped to train and fine tune his eye for complex micro details. His work with graphite and ink are as intricate and complex as micro electronics, in which every line seems to be a story of it’s own.
The artworks featured are titled Transcendence, ‘Pusaka 1’, and ‘Pusaka 2’. Pusaka in the Malay language means heirloom. The word itself is inherited from an even older language from ancient India.
According to Sanuri, “Pusaka is a Sanskrit word meaning treasure or heirloom. In Malay culture, Pusaka specifically refers to family heirlooms passed down from ancestors that must be treasured and protected. Malay house (rumah kampung) is one of the richest components of Malay culture. “
The Pusaka pair showcases traditional wooden houses that’s well interweaved with the forests of the land. They’re a disappearing heritage as internationalist built environments have become the norm.
Continuing on the topic of heirlooms, let’s meet Arif Rafhan otherwise known as Superdoofus, a well known comic book artist in the Malaysian art scene as one of the contributing members of Gila-Gila, one of the oldest cartoon magazines in South East Asia.
In the artworks curated for this show, Arif has created a whole series of batik that infused traditional elements of flora and fauna with contemporary pop culture elements. Flowers and fruits from the farms? Yes. Contemporary news incorporated into the motifs? Yes! Darth Vader inscribed with floral patterns? Yup, you got it. This region is like a great sponge- it absorbs all, chews it, tastes it and then churns out its own version of what came before.
Batik is a craft where art is transcribed onto a fabric using wax and dye (well, usually fabric). These handmade textile has been exported across the world for centuries.
The next four artists also explore the human connection with nature, and each one brings about their own flavor of the ethereal.
First up we have Nymea, a school teacher by day, teaching visual arts at IGCSE level.
Her works offers us a glimpse of female insight into the connection with the beauty of the natural world. The bold swathes of glorious hues seem to paint a picture of optimistic exuberance of youth.
I’d particularly love to join her the girl in her paintings on that journey of exploration and just breathing in the colours of the wind. I know, sounds corny but that’s how this feels like. Such wonder, such beauty.
Similiarly, Diela Maharanie’s works that have been curated into this exhibition also depict the playful side of humanity enjoying the bounty of the flora and fauna of the archipelago. Her works exudes child-like wonder of how certain flowers and trees and plants may look like- basically reimagining tapestry of nature with every colour carrying a function in the ecosystem of her world.
She’s not just a self taught artist with commercial success, but also a community leader in the Indonesian art scene as the co-founder of Metarupa, Indonesia’s first NFT community which has organized many events in the region and around the world.
The next one up is Faten otherwise better known as HelloFaten.
Unlike the boldness of Nymea and Diela, her works are instead more delicate and twee with a more muted palette. Very much informed by her experience as a mother, her works often shows what motherhood feels like, exploring and showing the connections of mother and child, in an environment where the tropical greens around her also serves as home.
“Most of my personal works are the illustrated pages of my journal, rendered in muted colors…
I started drawing when I bought my first Sailormoon book when I was 7 years old”.
Rumours are that when she’s not making art she can sometimes be seen racing pygmy elephants and playing badminton with orang utans.
Another thing really interesting about Faten is that her artwork was chosen from the entry of thousands to be launced into orbit with Malaysia’s Measat satellite. You could that despite her earth bound themes, her work is truly out of this world!
Exploring the relationship of humanity with the natural world is Melda VNH. It is not just about how things look but also it smells and sounds.
Hers is also a world that’s a supernatural one. Whether the characters are fairies, spirits or mortals, they are always round faced and cute and brown, which is how the natives of the archipelago are like.
Her characters have their eyes closed suggesting introspection. Her works depicts a peaceful inner world that might bring about memories of childhood innocence for the viewers.
“I expressed all my thoughts through my works, but it turned out that my works also read back to my character, my mood, and all the circumstances that were influencing my feelings. I always call it ‘My work draws me back’, and this is an interaction process that I really like and appreciate every time I create”.
Which leads us to…
The supernatural.
There has always been folklores about guardian spirits and mythical beings embodying everything, from the mountain to the jungle to the sea, with every tree and flower and rock having it’s own guardians.
The works of Arya Wirawan reimagines these guardian spirits in his own ways.
If it looks like he’s remaking them into 21st century superheroes, it’s because he spent his youth as part of a team that did the inks for American comic books! He is a life-long artist who has been quite successful in the regional art scene since childhood.
In his own words:
“What i had in mind for most of my art idea is social situation and cultural issue such as local wisdom that i believe always connected each other as a loop of social matter and the solving problem essences, the point is to keep moving on as the age timeline but not to forget the cultural roots as our unique identity.
“But somehow i love urban art as much as i love traditional art, so i always try to mixed both of it as a big idea of my ‘past, present,and future’ continous concept through my own visual enclosure or the narratives part which is will not bond into just one themes or visual enclosure only, cause I want my art to be represented by me not just my visual enclosure.”
I was really surprised when he told me is that when he’s not doing physical works, he would be drawing digitally on the tiny surface of his phone. Like you, I am still really impressed.
Nalta is another artist who infuses traditional motifs of Java with Japanese manga aesthetics to create strange new creatures: Orchid warriors, space knights, mice etc. With masterful use of sharp colours, the characters in his works always seem to have a playful gait. Just imagine if the invisible world around you is as joyous looking as this.
Nalta strives to “bridge the gap between tradition and modernity, fostering a connection that resonates with contemporary audiences. My aspiration is to make cultural narratives not only relevant but also deeply relatable amidst the evolving landscape of our times. Through my art, I endeavour to preserve and celebrate the authenticity of cultural roots while weaving them into a context that mirrors current societal conditions”.
Next up we meet Azhar Natsir Ahdiyat, AKA Ajay Ahdiyat, a lecturer of Visual Communication Studies at university level who also has a street wear business.
His portfolio is recognizable for the primary use of grey scale and red. He reimagines classic Indonesian beauties in settings which are a mix of the super natural and science fiction.
He explains “Puti Hita Mera is the terms from ‘putih, hitam, and merah’ that means white, black, and red. In my opinion, red is the simple-effective-efficience for delivering subject matters and black+white (or grayscale) helps balancing them”.
Hailing from a rural backwater area of peninsula Malaysia, Rizal (Rizal ROGArt aka Rizal Oil and Gas Art) is a bit of a mystery to me. Trying to get to know him better have yielded some short but hilarious conversation.
When I found out what his nickname meant, I assumed he was an oil and gas engineer. But that assumption was wrong, for he works at a petrol station. I was even more wrong when I assumed that he managed it.
To paraphrase Rizal -“I am a petrol station attendant by day, and I create dark magic by night”.
That is no exaggeration. With an extensive portfolio of works exploring similiar themes using the same techniques that gets more and more refined over time, his art, which draws from his immediate surroundings and from darker folk superstitions around him, does make one feel and think at the same time.
Talking about superstitions, check out the work of Wickana, who creates beautiful yet disturbing imageries. Her works usually depicts children shaped like dolls with large head and large eyes in the company of ghosts and monsters from Nusantara folklores.
“My black and white works portray duality interpretation, displaying a contrast with cute and creepy, yet playful but gloomy at the same time; composing two opposing ideas that complement each other. My artworks are often inspired by a combination of personal experience and her affection for horror movies/stories.“
Her latest work is debuting in this exhibition. Titled ‘After Dark’, it is inspired by ‘Wewe Gombel’ a supernatural being that kidnaps children who are still wandering about outside during the night time.
Lastly, there are Choen Lee’s artworks. Yes, mine.
My recent works have been exploring the nature of identity within shifting realities brought about by advancing tech and changing rhetorics in use of language. Otherwise known as censorship and thought control and how we adapt. I usually utilize cyberpunk visuals to do this.
On the artworks in this show, the first piece reimagines what the ancient deity Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice (abundance) and fertility might be like transitioning into a digital form for the metaverse.
Accompany this artwork are ‘The Surrogate’ (about what transhumanist pregnancy might be like in a fully cyber world) and ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, which would be placed on the surface of the moon in a 2024 NASA mission.
