Nyoman Masriadi Reconfiguring the Body

Nyoman Masriadi – Reconfiguring the Body offers a complete review of Nyoman Masriadi’s works, his life and inspirations – through the words of art critics, TK Sabapathy and Goenawan Mohamed. Masriadi is currently Southeast Asia’s most well-received contemporary artist; the appreciation of his work is a testimonial to his talent as a painter as well as a barometer of the ascendancy of Southeast Asian contemporary art.

The visual imagery and narratives in his paintings are derived from keen and intelligent observations of social life. Reactive against formalism, his early works show him sparring with Western modernism in the guise of cubism but meshing it with caricature, the cutting street language Indonesians use, and graffiti. His technique of overdrawing a finished painting with a marker can best be seen as a means of inscribing himself in or against tradition.