For over a decade, Yunizar formed his artistic practice mainly through painting, creating poetic canvases filled with raw, expressive forms that drew from his everyday surroundings and rich imagination. Yet, in 2012, with the invaluable help of the Yogya Art Lab (YAL), his practice expanded to three-dimensional forms, transforming the enigmatic figures and fantastic creatures that permeated his canvases into bold and commanding life-size cast bronze sculptures.
While his past sculptures maintained their bronze, old world colours, Yunizar has recently been painting his sculptures with brighter, more vibrant colours, lending to their whimsical quality. Predator depicts a surreal, disproportionally large fish mounted on a wall, inviting viewers to examine its intricate textures and alluring yellow colour.
The title, Predator, feels at odds with this unthreatening grand fish, depicted in Yunizar’s signature naïveté aesthetic. Just like in his monster series, in which fantastic animals appear more like playful, endearing creatures rather than frightful monsters, Predator reveals Yunizar’s penchant to find humour and irony in the ordinary, imbuing every mundane subject, from flowers to sea creatures, with childlike wonder.