Being fascinated by photographic realism, Dede Eri Supria has developed his paintings through collection of photographs. He found his idioms through observing these photos. However he never copies the photographs either. His paintings show that he tends to go beyond photography, in the sense that the sceneries he creates in his canvases are impossible for photography to emulate. In playing with this imagination of the unreal-reality or engineered visual reality, he employs painstakingly realistic technique in the details of his works.

Supria, who came from a simple family that lived in the capital city, has a strong motive for expressing matters related to the survival of common people in big cities. His canvases are often filled with urban dilemmas he found in Jakarta especially the struggle of working social groups and their hard lives as a consequence of urbanization. Here he expressed his feelings on the urban paradoxical reality in metropolitan cities through pseudo people that he quotes from his memories.

Supria did not only portray such people. By creating chaotic conditions that very often becomes dramatic, he expresses his social commentary. In a way his paintings indicate the lost condition of simple people in the labyrinth of urban society who are trapped by a rapid and complicated changes. He painted, for example, horrible landscapes of a big city dominated by advertisement images, through painting them in several different perspectives. The landscape emerges as a chaotic situation that portrays human beings as trash.

However, Supria does not link himself with solving problems of societal imbalance. Neither does he pinpoint an acute analysis of the given problems. Instead he intensively directs his sympathy and empathy towards people who are backed into a corner. The people in his canvases are a reflection of his own life experiences. He is not the man who is shouting in a loud voice to express social criticism. He expresses his sympathy more towards bitterness that he himself is not able to solve.

The works of Supria very often place people within illusive spaces, for example a labyrinth. It was these spaces that created a dramatic situation, not the people that are usually painted ordinarily. This tendency shows an attempt to pile up the real and the unreal realities. In many of his paintings human beings indeed play only a suplementory role within a huge terrifying space. Here Dede Eri Supria created unfriendly milieus where ordinariness were meaningless.

Jim Supangkat

Born on January 29, 1956 in Jakarta.
Studied at Indonesian School of Art (SSRI), Yogyakarta (1975-1977).

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2002 "Concerning Change", Art Folio, Singapore.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1998 Indonesian Paintings Biennial XI, Ismail Marzuki Cultural Centre (TIM), Jakarta.
2001 "Reading Frida Kahlo", Nadi Gallery, Jakarta.

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