A Group Exhibitions

Shen Shaomin ( 沈少民 )

Australian Chinese Artist
Shen Shaomin is a contemporary artist. Lives and works in Beijing and Guangzhou, China and Sydney, Australia. Multi-disciplinary and cross-media. Notable artworks span installation, video, documentary film, conceptual painting, poetry, and interactive public art, among other formats.

Participation in many influential international exhibitions:
Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (2019); Art Basel Hong Kong “Encounters”(2017); Busan Biennale (2016, 2012); First Kiev Biennale (2012); Guangzhou Triennial (2012, 2005); Shanghai Biennale (2012); Sydney Biennale (2010); Liverpool Biennial (2006)…Recent large-scale solo projects include “THERE IS NO PROBLEM”, Guangzhou Rectory Museum of Contemporary Art (2015). Documentary films “ I AM CHINESE” “ONE MONK TEMPLE”. Chief Director of International Artist’s Edition Light Show, Shenzhen Civic Centre; Shen Shaomin’s works are in the collections of many renowned art institutions and private individuals worldwide.

Artist Statement – “The Hypnotized Artist”

“The Hypnotized Artist” presents a hypnotic master from the United States who hypnotizes more than forty Chinese artists. In the process, every hypnotized artist reacts differently. Through this process, we draw the following conclusions: when the subconscious is opposed to the normal consciousness, the depth of the cognitive system is arranged according to the level, and the depth of hypnosis are determined. Hypnosis changes the state of consciousness so that the various cognitive systems are separated from each other. People’s independent consciousness also maintains independence within the control range. Therefore in the process, everyone reacts differently when they are hypnotized.

Gegerboyo (Art collective)

Gegerboyo is a collaborative project between Vendy Methodos, EnkaNkmr, Dian Suci Rahmawati, Ipeh Nur and Prihatmoko Moki. Gegerboyo is much inspired by traditions of Javanese culture, urban culture, the relation in between and the correlation with the current socio-political phenomena.

The series of Tan Hana Dharma Mangrwa is a fragment from one of the most important sentence in Kakawin Sutasoma –work of Mpu Tantular, 1400s, where its first fragment was proposed by Mohammad Yamin as the country’s motto, Bhineka Tunggal Ika. Bhineka Tunggal Ika (that one is diverse), Tan Hana Dharma Mangrwa (there is no forked truth or truth is unambiguous), so that is the full version of the motto. Bhineka Tunggal Ika shows the importance of tolerance and Majapahit Kingdom’s pluralism at the time, particularly tolerance between religions. ‘That one is diverse’ could be interpreted that in one Majapahit Kingdom there were various beliefs, groups and tribes, and ‘there is no forked truth or truth is unambiguous’ shows that those different faiths, groups, and tribes of Majapahit Kingdom believed and united in one truth, which in this case is Metaphysical Truth and could be equated with the concept of Human Truth (anthropon dikaiosune) –the concept of truth that places emphasis on people’s virtue to the others and in which also reflects his virtue to his God.

Tan Hana Dharma Mangrwa Series of 22 pieces

The words ‘mangrwa’ or ‘forking, becoming two, or ambiguous’ (‘rwa’ means ‘two’) is absorbing, for number two itself was frequently flourishing Majapahit’s history; for example, two wangsa or two royal dynasties (Rajasa and Sinelir), two royal religions (Shaivism and Buddhism), two colors of imperial flag (red and white), and the philosophical dualism concept of rwa bhinedda (two opposites) –duality that is balancing each other, such as: men and women, day and night, good and bad, birth and death, and so forth. Likewise Modern life, it is flourished with dualistic phenomena, for example: strife between two opposite political groups, matches between two football clubs, friction between two different sects of a religion –each of them has its own respective pennant, they are balancing and complementing each other and unified in one; the two political groups fight for one country, the two different football clubs fight in one match, and those sects blame one another under one religion. The concept of Bhineka Tunggal Ika as a unity is already reflected in Gegerboyo as a body of collaborative project which successfully unites the diversity of its members –who artistically has different character of visualization from one another, but they are one, under one same pennant, and it is Gegerboyo.

Yanuar Ikhsan

Yanuar Ikhsan was born in 1992, Indonesia. In general, Yanuar Ikhsan’s process in making art is a way of expressing what bothers his mind. Lately, he has been working on the theme of death for his creative process. Themes are interesting for the artist and audiences only if the themes related to both of them. When artists are still able to create works and audiences can still enjoy the works, they are both still alive, the closest phenomenon to life is death. Death is an interesting subject to discuss because death is always contextual with every ages and time. Death is a certainty for every living creatures.

Guan Wei ( 关伟)
Australian Chinese Artist
Guan Wei, 1957 Born in Beijing, China. 1986 graduate from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing Capital University, 1989 – 1992, Artist-in-Residence, Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Artist-in-Residence, Canberra School of Art, Australian National University and Artist-in-Residence, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. 1993 under the distinguished immigration to Australia. In 2008 set up a studio in Beijing. Now lives and works in both Beijing and Sydney.

Guan Wei has held more then 70 solo exhibitions internationally. He also has been included in many important international contemporary exhibitions, such as Shanghai Biennial; Cuba 10th Havana Biennial; Australia Adelaide Biennial and Third Asia Pacific Triennial; Japan Osaka Triennial; Kwangju Biennial, etc. He has been awarded in many art competitions. Including: 1994 & 1998 Gold Coast City Gallery Gonrad Jupiters Art Prize; 2001 Mosman Art Prize Sydney; 2002 Sulman Prize at Art Gallery of NSW; 2015 Arthur Guy Memorial Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery VIC.

Artist Statement – Looking For Enemies

On August 14th 2003, just two hours after my arrival at New York City, I encountered with the terrible blackout occurred in the United State and the east of Canada. Being in darkness for two days, and the New York City was completely disabled, I experienced the horrible living atmosphere myself. In the following days after the power loss incident, the news about anti-terrorism and the war with Iraq were flooded on all kinds of Medias, the newspaper, the TV, the magazine and the Internet. Nevertheless the US government constantly sent alert to the public in warning the possible terrorist bombing here and there. All of a sudden the peace disappeared in our life and we became nervous, worried, afraid and hateful. With timing passing by, the fear and hatred gradually overwhelmed the sympathy and compassion in our heart. We started to look around and doubted who are the enemy and the terrorist. You? Him? or myself? We lost not only the order but also the reason. We are destroying ourselves and ruining our life even before the real terrorist’s attack.

The French scholar Mr. Jean Baudrillard believes that we are living in a “simulation” era that the symbols are unceasingly multiplying and expanding. The “simulation” is brought by high-tech development in various fields such as genetic engineering, the bionics, the holography, the computer stimulant technology etc. As a result of such simulation, our real life has been fulfilled with symbolic illusions. And all the realities no matter related to politics, economy, history or society could be reinterpreted in such a simulant surreal dimension. The symbols and the stimulation from symbols to symbols have substituted the real word. In fact, the contemporary life is a symbolizing process.

Today, the war is no longer the same as before, it is a competition between machines and the high-tech. When we watch the high-tech battle news through TV, internet or DVD, the battle looks like an electronic game. It is exciting however it makes us feel unreal. Therefore it is difficult to depict today’s battle in a traditional and true-life method. Here I create a new vocabulary called “flowing symbol” which means, through re-arranging, editing and re-classifying, the symbols that I collected in our daily life such as symbols used in the computer applications, the transportation system, the military, the meteorology and the geography etc. have been creatively put into a simulant landscape which is similar to a map, and flow in such a landscape. I expect this new visual language will be more close to the phenomenon in our realistic life.

In my childhood, I was fascinated in drawing planes, cannons and tanks. Especially during the China Cultural Revolution times, I painted on the wall with themes on beating down the American imperialism or overthrowing Soviet Russia revisionism. As a boy, my fever for war and my worship towards power reached to the peak at that time. I even cherished the illusion that together with Chairman Mao to liberate the human being! Nowadays while I run back to these childhood stories, it makes me laughable as of the laddish puerility, but also fearful as of the human being’s original ferity and hatred could be easily resurged. The causes for wars and catastrophes are derived from such ambition, distrust and animosity. Therefore I hope my new serial of works could reveal the ghastfulness of the war as well as to recall our love and consciences in preying for peace.

Guo Jian ( 郭健 ) Australian Chinese Artist

Born in Guizhou China, Graduated with BA, Central Minorities Institute (now renamed Minzu University of China), Beijing, China. Lived and based in Australia.

In this series of works, each artwork presents an “abstraction” of a figure distorted by glass blocks. When the eye looks through the arrangement of glass blocks, we will only see the “abstraction”

of the object behind it. The perception that is present will be different when we look through the glass arrangement of blocks compared to seeing directly an object. When looking through the glass beam, the image of the object appears to be blurry, distorted, damaged and tends to be unclear, but the original object behind it has not changed at all. Based on this, the way we see an object through a glass beam is felt to represent and form a metaphor for how we see and judge other individuals.

Citra Sasmita

She graduated from Physic Department Ganesha University of Education, Bali, Indonesia.
Citra Sasmita put her concern and passion on women’s issues through her artistic practice. With the awareness as a Balinese woman growing in the midst of patriarchal culture, she loudly voices her criticism over the system that has been subordinating the role and formation of women’s identity. Through her visual language enriched in symbols, she elaborates the issues of identity, stigma and sexuality narrated through the image of the female body. The idea of voicing sacrifice, struggle, and hope, is presented in her third solo exhibition, entitled “Under The Skin”.

The Corpus series represents the complexity of “the female body” in which it encapsulates multiple contextual meanings.

In the context of art history, women’s physical body is often considered as an object in traditional paintings where the artists used the technique of still-life to depict nature and objects. Similarly, in the Corpus painting series, a woman’s body is treated like a natural object that lacks self-agency. This concept refers to the Latin term “Familia” (family). Originated from Roman slavery, the female body is considered as an object that belongs to a household. However, in contrast to this intellectual understanding of Corpus (body) as a passive still- life object, the female body in a spiritual context plays an active role in the continuity and harmony of life.

Soliloquy is a painting that documents women’s psychological experience when having an internal dialogue with themselves.

In psychology, every action taken by humans is always driven by their thoughts and curiosity. The mind can be a place
for human desire, empathy, and emotion to melt into one through an inner conversation (soliloquy). A space where we can get to know ourselves more deeply, including considering everything that is subtle, essential, even philosophical for life. In this psychological context, women often perform soliloquy when placing themselves in a contemplation space. The conversations that arise can be influenced by the factual reality that is happening right now but can also be filled with memories of the past, or visions for the future. Like a spinning pendulum, inner conversation will lead people to a constant point of consciousness, constructing a continuum.

He Wenjue (何汶玦)

He is currently the vice president of Hunan Oil Painting Society, a member of China Artists Association and a member of Chinese Oil Painting Society.

City: Group Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art, Meridian International Center, Washington, U.S.A, Chinese Contemporary Art 2008, Korea National Art Museum, Seoul, Korea, The 7 th Shanghai International Biennial, Olympic Fine Arts Game 2008, China International Exhibition Center, Floating: Contemporary Chinese Art, Korea National Art Museum, Today Art Exhibition, China National Art Museum.

His works are collected by:

China National Art Museum, Overseas Chinese Museum, Liu Haishu Art Museum, Zhejiang Museum, Siemens Ltd, Madrid National Swimming Center, Meilun Art Museum, Tan Guobin Contemporary Art Museum, Hunan Art Academy Museum, Shanghai Duolun Art Museum, How artmuseum, Vanhaerents Art Museum, Thomas Olbricht Museum, China Olympic Committee Art Museum, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art Museum, Ucity Art Museum of GAFA, Guangzhou, Changjiang Museum Of Contemporary Art, Indonicia CP Foundation, Today Art Museu, Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum, Guangdong Art Museum, Chinese Embassy in the United State of America, Swiss POLEDNA|BOSS|KURE, Himalayas Art Museum, Royal Bank of Canada, Hong Kong Branch, Wenshare Art Museum, Whitebox Art Center, The Parkview Museum, Shijiazhuang Art Museum, Hunan Provincial Art Museum, L’Alcora Ceramic Museum, Dalian Art Museum, The wyss international art center, XUANZHI art Museum, The Art Museum of China Central Academy of Fine Arts.

His works have been displayed on exhibitions at:

“Scenery in Map”ShangHai Solo Exhibition, Solo Exhibition, Sense of the Sparkle: He Wenjue Singapore Solo Exhibition, Singapore, The 9th & The 10th National Annual Fine Arts Exhibition, The first Chinese, Freehand Brushwork Oil Painting, 4th Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale, 6th BICMA, Painting the Present, Certosa di San Giacomo, Via Certosa 1 – Capri, Capri, Italy, The 2nd Chinese Oil Painting Biennale, The National Art Museum of China, The Xinjiang International Art Biennial 2014, Ethics as the DNA Art: The 9th Florence Biennale, SEA OF PEACE: Japan-Korea Contemporary Art Exhibition, Korea, Faces and Figures, Germany, Vanhaerents Museum Collection, Brussel Belgium, China Welcomes You, Oldenburger Stadtmuseum, Oldenburger, Germany, The 24th Asian International Art Exhibition, Kuala Lumpur National Art Museum, The 4th Chengdu Biennial, In a Cosmopolitan

Artist Statement – 365 Days

Among all living things lie the primitive desire for
the proliferation of life. From single cells to trilobites, then trillions of years on, to the intelligent beings, reproduction has been an integral part of evolution as the innermost basic instinct, forceful and irresistible. Through sex, human beings find proof
of their own existence and a conversion of life. In reproduction, human beings most sincerely carry on the will for survival. In this group of works, I created 365 sex positions that metaphorically represent
the 365 days of a year as the human desire in the working in various forms. Visually I adopted a technique to blur up the desire to bring a certain ambiguity, yet one that more provocatively points to heart. I try to blend into my works the sensual desires and sensible thinking, in order to unveil the dazzling allures of the desire as well as its formidable and almost diabolical appeal.

Desy Gitary

Desy Gitary, born 26th june, 1980 in Lampung. Bachelor of communication, Universitas Prof Dr.Moestopo (B), Jakarta. Previusly, Desy was a journalist, news anchor, script writer. As a self thought artits, Desy not trying hard to displace a sight, but character, memories and hopes. Most of her works about human figure. Desy’s concept is “unpredictable result” as life it self. Desy loves the journey as face to face between Desy and her medium- use charcoal, pastel, acrylic, oil and oil bar. For Desy, character, memories, hopes are similar but mystery-unpredictable. She put a lot of layers and short lines in to her work, sort of imaginary line, that makes the object blur. She mixed the material to present the complexticity about mind and feeling.

Since 2016 Desy has two solo exhibition, 07:00 at RuangDalam Art House, Yogjakarta, 2016, and Beyond, at Syang Art space, Magelang, 2018. Last but not least, Desy also do art video. Desy Gitary lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Artist Statement – Twisted Myth

I like to capture character, feelings; memories, hopes-dreams, regrets, fears, trauma. Those things living in our life zone as well. Some of us, afraid to jump out of comfort zone, some of us creating another comfort zone within chaos. I think, we should ride the sorrow, also the happines. I know it’s not easy, but not possible. Don’t forget to chills on every “battle”. We crawl first, then run. Falling? Get up. Ride the zone.

Yohanes Wahyu

Yohanes Wahyu fisihed his study of Printmaking Major at ISI Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
His work evolve around the idea of culture and civilization and how people conveys their experience and feeling.

Ki Ageng Mangir IV (Bagus Wanabaya) was a descendant of Brawijaya V who was said occupied southern area in the Special Region of Yogyakarta long before Panembahan Senopati began his reign in that area as a result of Palihan Nagari as written in the Giyanti Pact.

The story of Ki Ageng Mangir and his magical spear are only slightly mentioned in the babad, chronicles, or other written products of Javanese kingdom in his time. The illustrations in Yohanes Wahyu’s artworks can be said to be a bridge that connects pieces of the Mangir story for all of us. In this series he mixed the story of Ki Ageng Mangir with modern pop culture character such as Mr. Bean and Doraemon into series of etching prints.

Angga Wahyu a.k.a Lowpop

Angga Wahyu a.k.a Lowpop was born in 1992, Indonesia. He is a self-taught artist. In his artwork, Lowpop raises issues regarding circumstances and personal problems as a medium for introspection. Besides works in two-dimensional form, he also produces several other forms of work, including in the form of murals, illustrations, as well as collaborating with several fashion brands.

For him, humans consist of several components including the ego which can help form self-image. He wanted to convey something as a form of self- insinuation introspection that there is a simple happiness that is forgotten. Because we are too focused on the great happiness.

Uswarman

“For me, my art is a form of self-contemplation. My work is spontaneous in processing materials and visual elements to create surprising sensations and delivers sublime feels. Departing from personal issues and the environment around that can be affecting and raising my artistic taste. Formalism and expressionism are become the tendency of my artworks.”