S.E.A. FOCUS
January 22 - 31, 2021
BAIK + KHNEYSSER presents Eddy Susanto in the S.E.A. Focus Art Fair.
Eddy Susanto requires a solid team to read, examine, and uncover new meanings from historical texts in order to inform the subjects of his work. For instance, Susanto finds inspiration from German Northern Renaissance artist, Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528) as inspiration for Samuel I of Dürer #8. In this work, Susanto pays particular attention to Dürer's woodcuts and engravings created between his first return to Nuremberg from Italy, and his second and final return to Nuremberg following a visit to the Netherlands—i.e. between 1497 and 1523. Dürer's graphic works are the manifestation of Old Testament texts written in Hebrew, another aspect that Susanto references in his own work. In his paintings, Susanto creates outlines and illusion lines made from hand-lettered Pallava (or Jawi) script, painstakingly and intricately written with black pen.
Eddy is able to activate textual components and make them into the main instruments of his work. Unlike other Text Artworks that use (or operate) text on a dense conceptual level, Eddy uses text (in this case Javanese script) as a pictorial capital with which, or through which, he can compose his various images on two-dimensional media. We must also realize that although his presentation of Javanese script clearly demonstrates artistic-visual aspects of a highly technical working process, on a cerebral level, it is clear that Eddy has done preliminary research to formulate his working process on an abstract level as well. Because of this, the audience and visitors can discover interwoven meanings amongst the various textual objects in Eddy's works. In this way, the audience will also be required to conduct intellectual explorations that can be quite complicated at times.