WHAT NEXT: ARIN DWIHARTANTO SUNARYO
Why pay attention?
Since completing his MFA at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London, Sunaryo’s eye-popping abstract paintings have swiftly attracted commercial interest and critical attention in the US, Europe and Asia. He is represented by ARNDT Gallery in Berlin and in recent years has exhibited in Singapore (Equator Art Projects in 2013), at the Hong Kong Arts Centre (2014), the Samstag Museum in Adelaide (2014), and in New York at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2014 where he also was the subject of a glowing profile in the New York Times. Born in Bandung, Indonesia, Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo works with synthetic liquid resins to create bold gestural artworks that harken back to the heyday of abstract expressionism.
What do they do?
Sunaryo pours layer upon layer of resin onto canvas, splashing and dripping the liquid to disperse the glossy pigments across the surface. He embraces chance and spontaneity to create his dynamic painterly compositions. Sometimes the artist displays the underside of the painting, removing the ground itself once the pigment has dried; at other times he flattens the picture plane by pressing a sheet of glass against the wet painting. In more experimental works, he incorporates volcanic dust or photographic media within the large resin panels. His more recent artwork involves layering dried pigments – the residue of previous paintings – to build up and form minimalistic sculptures.
What’s it about?
Unlike many of his Indonesian contemporaries, the artist is unabashedly apolitical in his approach and disinterested in past Indonesian cultural traditions such as ‘wayang’ (shadow puppetry) and batik. His sources instead include Japanese manga and science fiction. His non-figurative investigations with industrial and natural resins reveal an artist who is fascinated with materiality and indicate a new form of abstract expressionism for the contemporary era.
The artist says…
“So far I’ve learned a lot from every pigment I’ve explored. Each has a different approach/intention/effect when meeting each particular pigment. The choices of the pigments actually open up a completely new horizon within my artistic works.”
