IO, Jakarta – The Salihara community again held a fine art exhibition featuring a solo exhibition of artist Natisa Jones, a Balinese artist. Born in 1989, she explores the theme of identity and state of human spontaneously and expressively. Graduate of Prem Tinsulanonda International School, Thailand, and continued her studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia. Natisa now lives and works in Bali and Amsterdam.
In the exhibition this time given the title Grotesk by Asikin Hasan as the curator, Grotesk means “strange” but not strange as imagined. Natisa Jones managed to pack her naive feelings into pictures, paintings, and literature expressively. In her solo exhibition, Natisa will feature hundreds of drawings and paintings mostly done in her studio and residence in Bali. She draws freely in any situation and in any form.
“Natisa Jones works along with her emotions and inner motions, her one-trim line, often leaving a powerful emotional trail, the ugly, sullen, naked, and chaotic flat shape is the subject that keeps repeating itself in her work, which is the impression of grotesk on her work in this exhibition,” said Asikin Hasan as the curator.
Grotesk realism is often found in the works of European painters, such as the paintings of Otto Dix, George Grosz and other painters in the Weimar republic, early to mid-20th century. Their works were during World War I and II, where at that time they brought out something rational and transformed into something crazy and irrational. The explosion of a big human case triggered Dix and his friend to work.
So was Natisa Jones, recording all her rational memory of life and pouring it into something irrational. Natisa tries to invite art lovers to look back to their most personal experience through her work. Natisa will continue working with her own red thread, poured in pictures, and words that are interconnected. Natisa is the youngest artist invited by Komunitas Salihara to showcase her work singly in Gallery Salihara.
Natisa previously held a solo exhibition ‘Tough Romance’ (Ruci Art Space, Indonesia, 2016) and ‘Under Ghostbird’ (Swoon, Indonesia, 2015). She also often participates in collective exhibitions, including Art Stage Jakarta 2017 (Ruci Art Space, Indonesia, 2017), Finalist UOB Painting of the Year Indonesia (Ciputra Artpreneur Gallery, Indonesia, 2016), Beyond Baliseering (Fortyfive Downstairs Gallery, Australia, 2016), Gudang Garam Indonesian Art Award “Respublica” (National Gallery of Indonesia, 2015).
The exhibition is open to public on Saturday, 30 June 2018, 19.00 WIB and will take place from July 1 to 26, 2018 at Galeri Salihara, Komunitas Salihara, Jakarta. Together with this exhibition, the Art Book titled As Close to Me as Possible will be available for sale, it’s been printed in limited quantities. The launching of this book will be done simultaneously while talking with artists to be held on Wednesday, 04 July 2018, 16:00 pm. More information can be found on the website and social media of Komunitas Salihara dan Ruci Art Space. This program is a collaboration of Komunitas Salihara with Ruci Art Space and Natisa Jones Studio. (Aldo)