A Note of Uswarman’s Solo Exhibition –Life Report
At midnight, on the front porch of his studio I and Uswarman had a talk about his art journey since 15 years ago. His words came out in a hurry so that sometimes it was incomplete to say one full sentence, as if many things he wanted to say in one sentence. The way he talks is the same as his paintings, which hold everything in layers and lines of color. The conversation with Uswarman sometimes stopped when he unpacked his works one by one, showing another side of the abstract that he had achieved in recent years. As if it were a puzle, Uswarman arranged all the reasons for how this and that were created, how visuals and shapes he no longer cared about.

Uswarman artistry can be divided into two periods; figure period and abstract period. The period of figures is his earlier works, at this time Uswarman explored form, anatomy, and material experiments. It was these times which formed the characteristics of Uswarman’s abstract works today. The choice of colors, lines, and composition as if transformed in different painting styles. Consciously or unconsciously, Uswarman has repetition of these elements in his abstract work. The aesthetic unconsciousness provides a strong characteristic, so that Uswarman can be guessed through lines and colors even in other painting
styles.Ego is an idea in the making process of his works. Uswarman cultivates everything that gives a former sense of self, those things can be tragedy, comedy, longing and love. In this process

Uswarman volunteered himself as the main medium for creating works, so that a part of him was entirely his painting. In the process he did not invite people to make sense, but rather felt it. In the span of 15 years, although in a different style of painting, Uswarman always tells about himself. This pattern might be related to retrospect or therapy to release emotions so that his works are very personal and difficult to translate in general agreement about symbols and colors. But not in the absence of ideas, but in other contexts, all the feelings expressed by Uswarman are social problems of society in general. So that his works accommodate a reflection of general problems centered on him. his work seems like a big mirror where everyone can see and interpret themselves so as to find new awareness from the feeling process.

This time, Uswarman’s solo exhibition shows a long process of artistic exploration. In this solo exhibition, we can also see a transition in how works from the period of figures slowly change to abstract. This transition shows how difficult it is for an artist to find the right visual choice. So the process of choosing abstracts for Uswarman is not something sudden.

Riski Januar
Bantul, 13 December 2019