‘Islands in Between’ presents the work of four mid-career artists from Yogyakarta, the hotspot of Indonesian contemporary art and semi-permanent home to many Australian artists, curators, dealers and gallerists who have gravitated to the capital of culture to soak up the exuberance of the art scene and the local art collectives. While the Javanese city is well established on the global contemporary art radar, audiences in Australia seldom have the opportunity to experience the work of Indonesian artists, particularly the work of artists whose work is not overtly ‘political’ in nature in that it does not refer to recent and often tragic events in Indonesia’s recent past. Rather, the representations of landscape in the works of Dadi Setiyadi, Ismanto Wahyudi, Januri and Nugroho Heri Cahyono, and recall the complex history of engagements with landscape that characterises the development of Indonesian modern art.
Dadi Setiyadi, Monalikwek, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30cm. Courtesy the artist and Thienny Lee Gallery, Sydney
There is certainly playfulness in the work shown here, with Dadi Setiyadi fusing the visual vocabularies of classical portraiture and popular culture to depict a series of figures wearing rubber duckbills. The twelve pieces by Ismanto Wahyudi, each representing a sign of the Chinese zodiac known as ‘shio’in Indonesia, are intended to highlight the assimilation of Chinese values and aesthetics into Javanese culture. Januri depicts a series of clothing items seemingly draped on limp but unseen bodies, which float against a busy and twirling backdrop. While the title of this series ‘Ajining Rogo Soko Busono’ is a Javanese adage meaning that people are judged by their appearance, none of the items of clothing depicted here conforms to conventional Javanese dress codes perhaps suggesting that in contemporary Yogyakarta the rules have changed. Nugroho Heri Cahyono’s solitary female figure appears in the foreground dressed in the traditional upper garment of the Javanese woman but has a mountain range for a head, mirroring the lush green mountains in the background. Here the mountains and the costume stand out as symbols of Javanese culture, which as this exhibition shows is certainly home to brilliant and thought-provoking artists.
Dr Siobhan Campbell is a researcher in Indonesian art and material culture at the University of Sydney
Thienny Lee Gallery
15 March to 3 April, 2018
Opening on the Thursday 15 March, 6-8pm
Sydney
