Gajah Gallery is excited to present J Ariadhitya Pramuhendra, an Indonesian artist, who has created 12 new charcoal paintings for his most recent series, Spacing Identities, which were inspired by his earlier family portraits. The intimate nuances hidden in family portraiture and routine happenings distinguish the works as they frame and allude to certain occasions in the artist’s life.
Spacing Identities conceptually addresses the problems of memory and identity. The pictures, which were taken from old family photos, and their seeming randomness serve to demonstrate the idea that our memories are not permanent. Instead, the process of remembering and painting is portrayed as something that happens in the present, when people use their memories to interpret their lives and come to terms with who they truly are.
The charcoal paintings are all done in a black and white photographic style, giving the impression that they are accurate records of the past. However, a closer reading shatters that anticipation. All of the pieces emphasize that remembering is a continuous process and that our memories are constantly changing and fluid due to the blurriness of the charcoal drawings with the faces that are difficult to make out. The focus here, then, is not so much on what is remembered but how it is remembered.
