From 5 to 26 May, Rumah Jawa Gallery presented a painting exhibition titled “The Meeting Point”. Artists Afdhal, Giring Prihatyasono, Hono SUN, Januri, Katirin, M.S. Wawan, Tjokorda Bagus Wiratmadja (Coki) and Tofan M.A. Siregar displayed the beauty visual of their skills in scratching palette blades and sweeping the brushstrokes with thickness of various colours on canvas at the exhibit.
Through the palette technique, the eight artists showcased their ideas and talked about the process of art and invited visitors to reflect for a while.
The theme “The Meeting Point”was a life journey, a meeting with everything, in a given space and time. It could also be interpreted as a meeting process and understanding each other between two or more spaces, which later could raise awareness of the decisions they took when they meet with various options.
It could also be a meeting of different generations and different cultural origins which certainly affected the mindset of each artist. Meeting to exchange experiences and learn from each other. The exhibition was expected to be one of the processes of bringing together the pieces of the story of every human’s long history in that space.
Afdhal’s work, entitled “Born to Move”, tells of the effort to keep moving forward toward a better future. A process in the cycle of life—birth and transitioning into adulthood—with all the stresses and frictions of life, or in terms of managing problems if handled properly, channels positive energy. The artwork reflects that it’s necessary for us to understand and distinguish the meaning of haste and efficiency in this fast-paced era.
Giring Prihatyasono tried to play with letter structures, illustrated by scratch technique among the piles of paint with a palette knife. The letters and colours were layered as a race between thought and taste, the struggle between the inner world and reality. Through his two works, “Poetry of No Rhyme” and “Fire of Love” he tells a story about a longing and the existence of love in this fast-paced world.
The desire to capture the spirit of beauty was told by Hono Sun through “Paradise” and “Dance at Bougival” which seemed to invite us to get pleasure from the simple things around us, to realise that the pressures and desires often make us forget about our surroundings.
In line with Januri, the idea of simplicity displayed through “Neighbour” and “My Corner” which visually conveyed the story about objects around the house or the things we’re closest to in daily life which seemed like a mirror, calling for introspection and looking for real self-meaning.
There were still many life journeys and thoughts of the artists to be conveyed through their visual works with different expressions in this exhibition. Works that technically and visually are capable of approaching the real and natural.
The theme of the exhibition told of a two-way encounter, but one of them couldn’t be discussed—the private thoughts of the audiences. They allowed them to wander freely in the world of imagination and make their own decisions when there was a meeting at one point.
The exhibition was officially opened by Heru Dewanto, an art lover and Chairman of Indonesia’s Engineers Association, and in cooperation with art gallery Qolbun Salim.
“The mission of this exhibition is to introduce these talented artists and we tried to bring them to the wider stage in order to art communities in Indonesia can develop more and better,” he said.
