Gajah Gallery Singapore is delighted to present Subliminal Remnant, the debut solo exhibition of Indonesian artist Ridho Rizki. Opening on 26 October 2023, this showcase will feature 13 new paintings, and will be accompanied by writings from Eka Novrian and Hidayatul Azmi.
Rizki captivates the audience with the stimuli conjured by the illusions of formal objects. His works maintain the feeling of foreignness amidst fleeting familiarity, floating on the border between consciousness and unconsciousness. The illusion within his paintings shifts according to the physical distance between the audience and the painting surface. Familiar objects present themselves in flashes of recognisability before they scatter into particles. Before long, the beholder becomes increasingly aware of how their eyes have been beguiled by the simplest elements: dots and colours. Rizki compels the audience to sift through the remnants of memories, seeking to identify an enigmatic yet intimate object, and inviting us to rediscover it time and again. He deliberately resists the instinct of our conscious mind to recognise and attach names or meanings to the objects within his paintings.
At the core of Rizki’s artistic vision lies the construction of objects through formal elements. However, it is crucial to note the way Rizki gathers remnants of his memories, not as an effort to define a meaning behind his work, but to reveal his perception as a subject who himself grapples with ties to objects in his past.
Rizki seeks to understand how the forms he perceives in the past relate to the aesthetic experiences or things he idealises today. Rather than revisiting the narrative-ladden past surrounding an object, Rizki strives to manifest a ‘form’ that embodies these memories. In the painting Untitled (Gambar Permukaan Air) (Untitled [Water Surface]), Rizki captures the idealised forms of the coastal landscape of Padang, where he grew up. In Untitled (Lingkaran) (Untitled [Circle]), Rizki recalls his encounter with the beauty of a well, partially buried in the sandy shores near his childhood home, and portrays it in his canvas as a circular form casually placed on the floor.
Rizki’s process of borrowing forms from objects does not diminish the formalistic approach of his works. The context of each object is non-representational. It exists solely as a presentation of its form. The word choice ‘presentation’ reflects Rizki’s conscious effort not to reintroduce the meaning of the object from which he borrowed its form. Success, for him, hinges on the ability of his works to captivate audiences through the illusion of spatiality, which he creates by concentrating or dispersing particles to construct a dominant object within his painted realm.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ridho Rizki (b. 1993, Indonesia) pursued his art education at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Indonesian Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta. In 2017, he received the Emerging Artist Award at Bakaba #6, held at the Sakato Art Community, Yogyakarta. He was also selected as a finalist for the Young Artist Award by RedBase Yogyakarta in 2016, and awarded Best Drawing Fundamental II at ISI Yogyakarta in 2015 and 2014.
Rizki’s artwork evokes the sensation of still life paintings, yet his interest lies not in the symbolic but in the dramatic and optical aspects of an object. Merging pointillism, impressionism, and still life, his paintings have drawn the attention of regional collectors for their technical virtuosity and subtlety. While previously, Rizki primarily employed a monochromatic colour palette, Rizki is currently exploring a painting technique that uses solid colour particles to emulate how human eyes perceive forms.
