Following a successful event last year at the inaugural edition of Art Stage Jakarta, Gajah Gallery returns to Indonesia for the second iteration of the regionally acclaimed art fair – this time with an even stronger presence than before.
At 138m2, Gajah Gallery will occupy the biggest booth at Art Stage Jakarta, fully utilizing the space to present some of the most sought-after Indonesian, Singaporean, Malaysian, and international artists.
For more than 20 years Gajah Gallery has remained at the forefront of the regional art scene, championing artists such as Yunizar, Ashley Bickerton, Rudi Mantofani, and Suzann Victor – working closely with the larger art community to raise these artists to unprecedented heights. The gallery firmly believes in the potential for Indonesian artists, in particular, to draw the attention of the international community and encourage further investment in the future of Southeast Asian art as a whole.
Gajah Gallery is widely recognized as one of the most influential galleries when it comes to identifying and promoting regional artists to international excellence. This year, we will present established and mid-career artists from the region, exhibiting a diverse selection of paintings and sculptures over the course of the weekend.
Ashley Bickerton (United States) recently reignited the attention of the international art world with the opening of his spectacular solo exhibition, ‘Ornamental Hysteria’ in London earlier this year. Perhaps one of the most acclaimed living expatriate artists, Bickerton has lived in Bali for almost 25 years, after making an initial impact in New York during the 1980s. Ashley’s work rejects simple classification, instead looking to capture the sprawling, cynical and materialistic, obsessive nature of contemporary culture. He is widely collected not just in the USA and Europe, but amongst Southeast Asian collectors looking to draw connections with the West. Bickerton blurs the boundaries between photo collage, sculpture, paint and digital image, allowing tremendous insights into the inner workings of his own mind.
Erizal As (Indonesia) is a rising Indonesian artist, whose first solo exhibition in Singapore last year catapulted the painter into the spotlight, drawing the attention of regional and international collectors. His inclusion in Art Stage Jakarta last year was a pivotal event that brought increased awareness of his work. His ever-evolving ‘Faceless Series’ attempts to capture the true essence of portrait’s subject: their character instead of their appearance.
Jason Lim is a master ceramist and multidisciplinary artist based in Singapore. His recent sculptures created at Yogya Art Lab are made from treated cast resin intricately painted to mimic organic growth. The new series ‘Under the Shadow of the Banyan Tree’ is inspired by the artist’s contemplations on the rich histories and belief systems centered on these revered and ancient natural forms.
Kumari Nahappan (Singapore) is widely recognized for her sculptural work, which ranges from table pieces to large scale public commissions. Using simple composition and strong vibrant colours, Kumari’s works reflect on life and energy. Kumari’s ‘Sprouting’ series takes the familiar bean sprout plant as its subject, and enhances them to create surreal, commanding yet sensitive sculptures.
Li Jin’s (China) works illustrate a philosophy of liberation and contentment, breaking with the archetypal formal subject matter associated with traditional Chinese ink paintings. He ventures into new artistic territory by painting an array of bizarre tropical subjects in a lush, vivid color palette, a harmony of conservative tradition and unabashed hedonism. The characters that appear in his paintings are drawn from his daily life, and his travels through China and Bali, Indonesia.
Mangu Putra’s (Indonesia) paintings exude an acute sensitivity to visual forms, bearing striking attention to detail and masterful manipulation of compositional elements. The artist is known to draw from a wide range of subjects, constantly evolving and reshaping the vocabulary of his distinct visual-aesthetic language. Mangu will present a fresh diptych from his ‘Wilderness’ series, which depicts a lush and beautifully rendered forest thicket. The ‘Wilderness’ series is one of the most popular among his collectors, and tends to sell quickly once released from his studio.
Ng Joon Kiat (Singapore) is one of Singapore’s most acclaimed abstract painters, receiving the accolade of being invited to participate in the Busan Biennale in 2014. His latest work delves further into a textural study of land and cityscapes, allowing the viewer a topographical view of the multidimensional layering of natural and man-made systems. ‘White Noise’, which will be shown at the fair, attempts to examine the overlap of perspectives that define cities and locations as nets of economy, connectivity, resources, and information in the post-truth world.
Rudi Mantofani (Indonesia) creates minimally composed paintings and sculptures that invite compelling reflections on human behavior. In ‘Merah dan Putih’ he shows the Indonesian flag dissolving into pixelated squares, while a superimposed chrome plated shape of the Indonesian islands bridges the color block divide. An earlier work from this series, which debuted at Art Stage Singapore in January, sold within the first hour of the fair opening.
Sabri Idrus (Indonesia) is inspired by surface and spatial stacking both physically and metaphorically. His extensive process of abstraction and layering causes forms to appear, vanish, and intertwine, unendingly shaping the relationship and the possibility of inter-expression. After completing a successful residency and solo exhibition in New York earlier this year, Sabri returned to Singapore to debut his new work in ‘Matters and Manipulations”, held at Gajah Gallery. The artist will also be included in the inaugural Kuala Lumpur Biennale in November 2017.
Yunizar (Indonesia) continues to enchant collectors and curators all over the world. His work reflects an ideal of imaginative and authentic expression, where the removal of supposed rational schools of thought allows for boundless creativity. Yunizar employs a combination of primitive markings and elementary forms to create a universal visual language in his art, which encompasses paintings and sculptures of various sizes. He will debut new paintings in addition to an incredible new sculpture titled ‘Monster’, freshly produced at Yogya Art Lab.
