At Galeri Salihara, from 19 April to 18 May 2025; Marker/Matrix is an invitation to reconsider the relationship between action and space, between trace and archive, between the temporary and the permanent in the context of printmaking. In the world of printmaking, the marker is the beginning of everything. It is the result of action, decision, and intention.
A mark is a line, scratch, swipe, incision, carving, or pixelated dot that becomes the reference for the print. The mark here is not just a trace of an action, but also a statement, a result of a conversation between the artist or printmaker and the wider world, through tools and imagination. It is a record that provokes perception and shapes understanding, a bridge between reality and possibility, between the concrete and the imaginary. Uniquely, after being printed and duplicated by human hands and machines, transformed onto paper into a graphic print artwork, the ‘authentic’ mark can be abandoned, or simply forgotten.
The matrix is both a container and a foundation. It can be likened to a plot of land where marks are planted and harvested. The matrix can take the form of a copper plate, plywood, stone, aluminum, film, or these days: a computer screen. In printmaking, the matrix is not the artwork itself. In the creation of manual prints, the matrix is an intermediary for the reversed images produced in the printing process. Print artists or printmakers often have to grapple with very specific tools and materials, conducting various experiments, to engage with their printing matrix.
Marker/Matrix views printmaking not only as a medium, but also as a metaphor. It is a reminder that in every mark, there is a story; in every matrix, there is a history; in every tool, there is technology; and in every technical printing procedure, there are human symbolic gestures and actions that can be contemplated and reinterpreted. This exhibition is a celebration of the paradox of printmaking: that it is an art born from technical rules and ‘pressure,’ yet now opens itself to freedom.
For more information and to buy tickets, visit tiket.salihara.org/acara/markamatriks-1.
Galeri Salihara
Jl. Salihara No.16, RT.14/RW.3, Ps. Minggu
+62 821 1556 7526
