SUVI WAHYUDIANTO
( Indonesia )






Suvi Wahyudianto was born in 1993, Bangkalan - Indonesia, he is a visual artist who lives
and works in Surabaya, East Java. Suvi is an artist who trying to analyze his
culture, Madura and the culture of Madura people in general, through his artworks.
In managing his idea he starts it with observation on daily reality and memory
to historical studies. His creative idea showed through rich experimentation,
installations and with various techniques as well.
During the two-month residency in REDBASE Foundation Yogyakarta, Suvi is interested to digs deeper experiences about Madura culture (outside of the mainland), about the adaptable culture run by Madura people (immigrants) in the other islands, especially in Yogyakarta.
During his creation progress, Suvi had did ethnographic discourse, observation, finding object, interview and discussion with Madura People in Yogya.
Onggha (naik in Bahasa) or "climbing up" is a subtle idiom refers to activity of Madura. People who leaving home for survival purpose and its antonym Toron (turun in Bahasa) or "going down" is idiom refers to activity for Madura People who returning to their home after Onggha.
Both idioms used by Madura people unconsciously in expressing flow of current in Merantau phenomenon. Suvi is exploring the phenomenon of "Merantau" (leaves one's home to make life better) of people of Madura especially what he found in Jogjakarta, he's trying to digs how the causal factor of the phenomenon can be taken not only as the central socio-economy (survival) activities from village to urban city but also as interpretation of a city itself (Jogjakarta) as a place where contestation of idea and identity encountered with cultural elements from the other ethnics and community.
ADAM DE BOER
( United States of America )






Adam de Boer is a visual artist based in USA, he received his MFA from the Chelsea College of Art, London, and his BA in painting from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
As a current Fulbright scholar, based in Yogyakarta, this exhibition is the result of de Boer's ongoing and intense engagement with Indonesian aesthetic and craft traditions. The eight new multimedia works that constitute Jungle Flame are a reflection of the artist's multi-layered artistic process, steeped in his critical investigation of identity and the appropriation, or as he states, "misappropriation of cultural forms." De Boer' enquiry began in 2010 with his first trip to Indonesia; a trip that awakened his desire to understand his own hybrid identity as a Dutch-Indonesian-American born and raised in Southern California, thousands of miles from his family's roots in the Central Java town of Purwokerto.
Fundamental to de Boer's practice is his attention to materials that have, for centuries, dominated the practice of Javanese craft and culture, including batik, carved wood, and leatherwork. For Jungle Flame, de Boer builds on his interest in the possibilities afforded by the unlikely synthesis of seemingly contradictory elements, that when combined, become a congruous image, the result of de Boer's thoughtful layering of material, process, and conceptual themes.
De Boer's work challenges its viewers to look twice as they move through the series, from a mirrored image of a young Javanese Muslim woman, representative of the paradoxes that exist in contemporary Indonesian society, to images of Java's landscape, reminiscent of the Mooi Indie or "Beautiful Indies" aesthetic, whose rejection by Indonesian nationalists marked the start of a uniquely Indonesian art history distinct from the influence of their Dutch oppressors. The young women are not simply placed on the canvas, but are instead embedded in a batik design derived from the patterns of local "tegel" tile brought to Indonesia by European colonists in the 19th century. While the Mooi Indie landscapes ask what the effect is of an artist reengaging with an aesthetic both lauded and intensely hated by each side of his familial heritage, respectively.
In the context of Yogyakarta, now recognized for its position on the global map of contemporary art, de Boer's work is especially valuable for its assertion that tradition - be it from the perspective of aesthetics or material - remains relevant to an understanding of positions related to the continued development of visual cultures, both for individuals and societies, be they homogenous or hybrids ever in flux.
MARTHA WEGLISNKA
( Poland )




