Land of Java

(12/29/2003)

Born in Central Java in 1972, Didik Nurhadi attended the Faculty of Art at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta, graduating in 1992.

This young man embarked on his artistic career as Indonesia slid into a tumultuous decade of political and social change. Accordingly, his work reflects a biting commentary on the tragedies that have befallen his country and the very human failings of those whose job it is to safeguard the nation. However, social criticism lacking introspection and a modicum of self-deprecation becomes a tiresome harangue, faults absent in the work of Didik Nurhadi who captures the irony of the Indonesian situation by satirically depicting his subjects as hugely rotund characters with prominent lips who reside in surrealistic landscapes.

Even the poor and disenfranchised are presented as obese in Didik's paintings, perhaps suggesting the poverty of spirit of a people living in a country blessed with so many natural gifts.

Land of Java

The current one-man exhibition at the Darga Gallery in Sanur, Bali, sees Didik Nurhadi returning to underlying themes from his native Java depicting recent man-made disasters in Aceh, Maluku, Papua, Timor, and Bali. He has remained faithful to his use of comical corpulent caricatures to depict the human condition.

The exhibition, which runs until January 27, 2004, is open daily from 11:00 a.m. until 7 p.m. at the Darga Gallery at Kompleks Sanur Raya No. 20-23 on Jalan Bypass Ngurah Rai.

For more information contact the Gallery at telephone ++62-(0)361-285249.