Satya Cipta

Satya Cipta earned her BA in Theatre from the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ) in 2010. During her studies, she participated in numerous musical performances as a singer, as well as theatre and film productions as an actor, all while maintaining an active practice as a painter. Upon graduating, she returned to Bali, working as a freelance actor, editor, director, and producer for Bali TV. In 2012, she began studying Balinese traditional painting—a turning point that led her to dedicate her career fully to painting.

Her first major exhibition came in 2016, when she was featured in the National Art Exhibition Epicentrum in Manado, South Sulawesi. A year later, she was invited to a residency at La Salle College, Singapore, where she presented work in a new media art exhibition and performance art programme. Between 2016 and 2017, she participated in numerous group exhibitions in Bali. In 2018, her first solo exhibition, A Budding Talent, was held at the Puri Lukisan Art Museum in Ubud.

“She is one of the most promising talents of her generation and her latest exhibition, A Budding Talent, at the Puri Lukisan Museum in Ubud, has been a resounding success… She challenges the codes of Balinese society by daring to question the place of the Hindu religion as well as that of men and women. Society is changing, even within conservative Balinese society, and Satya’s painting is the expression and voice of this transformation.”
— Clotilde Canova

Her second solo exhibition, Satya: A Great Talent in Its Bud, followed in 2019 at Oberoi Gallery, Denpasar. Indonesian art critic Jean Couteau praised her uncompromising voice:

“Her works are not only sexual fantasies. She confronts head on the rudeness of male patriarchy and sexual power. Who dares in Bali to talk about sexual violence and its troubling encounter with eroticism? Nobody but Satya! Who dares to depict women as reversing the roles, trampling a man’s head or testis? Satya again! So it is no surprise she has hard times finding acceptance among her peers.”
— Jean Couteau, Indonesian Fine Art

After a series of further group exhibitions in Indonesia and abroad between 2019 and 2021, she presented her third solo exhibition, The Wandering Soul, at Art:1 New Museum during the highly regarded Art Moments event in Jakarta in 2022. Writing in Tempo Magazine, Hendro Wiyanto observed:

“Satya’s lines, especially in her canvas works, are not always singular. Often, they appear as shadows—lines that graduate from dark to bright or vice versa—indicating that the forms in her paintings are not empty, but charged with solid substance.”

In 2023, Satya was invited as Artist-in-Residence at Footscray Community Art Gallery in Melbourne, presented by Project Eleven. Her activities there encompassed a painting exhibition, a line-drawing workshop, a performance with local experimental musicians at the opening, and interviews on local radio. The residency ran from March to June.

Beyond her exhibitions, Satya has been committed to teaching, offering lectures and workshops on her practice, Balinese traditional art, and healing practices. She also works professionally as an art and show director for theatre, film, and festivals across Indonesia, including the Toraja International Festival (TIF) and the Indonesian Music Expo (IMEX). Since 2018, she has been a singer with the internationally renowned Indonesian National Orchestra (INO), directed by Franki Raden, performing widely across Indonesia, Asia, Australia, and Europe.