Christine Park Gallery is delighted to present Bed Chamber, a solo exhibition featuring works on cloth and buffalo hide by Jumaadi. This is the Gallery’s second exhibition from its newly launched online-based exhibition series titled ‘2020 Viewing Room Series (https://christinepark.viewingrooms.com)’.
Jumaadi (b. 1973) is an Indonesian-Australian multidisciplinary artist. For his first exhibition in New York, he presents works inspired by ideas of closeness and separation, dreams and reality. Using buffalo hide, which has been used as artistic medium in different cultures since ancient times, Jumaadi chooses to focus on a material that is widely used in traditional Indonesian paintings, in particular on the islands of Bali and Java. The exhibition’s main work, Bed Chamber is executed on cloth, which is softer than buffalo hide and thinner than canvas. The artist also emphasises that “painting on cloth narrows the distance between drawing and painting, between ethnic and contemporary art, between handicrafts and art, and between many things that can lessen our distrust of other things”.
I would like to thank the organiser and curator of this exhibition. These works are history that have made me feel “full” before then empty again.
The idea of the exhibition came about in a situation where we find ourselves socially distanced. We get closer to one another in ways that are new and with more dependency on technology. Numbers are limited, distance between people and masks are part of social norms. These regulations vary from place to place but in fact, artists are used to living in a world like this. Uncertainties are the only certainty.
This exhibition will feature works with historical background and or personal memories. The processes of creating these works are based on reconsiderations between normality and abnormality, that present layer of composition from double narrations that are of opposite nature. For example, are people distancing themselves or closing in, hugging or about to let go. Soft walks side by side with hard, hollow with full, quietness and chaos, where the ticking time is not going hand in hand with your heartbeat. There is failure to fill something but in there you find love, the missing love. Quietness, seasons, isolation, wrong place, wrong growth, sweet, bitter, funny, silly, human, natural, lies, honesty, confusion, no control, poem, singing, feeling, fear, rise and fall, they are all cramming in a room.
These works have been, have occupied and have owned a few houses. From a small table in Sydney, a small studio in the middle of the forest in Imogiri in Indonesia, an old village in Kamasan, Bali. We move back and forth from one place to the other, living in a suitcase, train lorries, planes, boats before they leave to Jakarta, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and now New York? They are all my children, friends on the roads, places to think and share my feelings. Sometimes we gather in the middle of chaos, sometimes we separate until I don’t know when we are back together again. These works are histories that have made me feel full before empty again.
Jumaadi, June 2020
We are extremely grateful to artist Jumaadi who is working from Sydney and kindly agreed to do this exhibition with us. Our appreciation also goes to Santy Saptari in Jakarta. Without her, this exhibition would not have happened. Special thanks to the Photographer, Tim Connoly and artists from Kamasan, Bali for their technical assistance.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jumaadi (b. 1973, Sidoarjo in East Java) trained at the National Art School in Sydney, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2000 and a Master of Fine Art in 2008 as recipient of the inaugural John Coburn Emerging Artist Award. He currently lives between Yogyakarta and Sydney.
His works are widely featured in public and private collections across Australia, Asia and Europe such as National Gallery of Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art and Art Gallery of New Wales. In 2013, he was selected as one of five artists to represent Australia at the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, where he staged a shadow-puppet play, an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment. His works are influenced by Indonesian art, Javanese folklore and poetry.
Jumaadi works with a wide range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, poetry and performance. His oil and acrylic paintings are executed on a variety of materials, such as cloth, canvas and buffalo hide. Many of his figures and scenes inspire an otherworldly feeling.
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