In Indonesian art today, the art of painting has shown a phenomenal growth. Along with that growth, we often agree with the cliche that says the visual culture has become a general fact, as we see the various visual imageries in our daily lives. Strangely enough, the cliche seems also to force us to believe that there are certainties in the practice of creating a visual imagery, including in the realm of painting.

Here lies exactly Dikdik's difference with most of other Indonesian painters. Thematically, Dikdik's works are still dominantly influenced by art discourses. His works questions more about the choice of media and idioms in paintings. Dikdik's works touch upon, and move around, our belief and disbelief about the realm of painting. Rather than fully believing in the realm of painting as a medium to convey the artist's intention, Dikdik uses painting to explore territories of visual constructions instead. In the discourse of Indonesian painting, which still puts a heavy emphasis on originality and individual hallmarks, Dikdik's approach become unpopular. His explorations in problem of illusive dimensions in the art of painting make his works difficult to be recognized according to styles or characters.

"There is a loss of depth," says Dikdik about the position of the art of painting in the contemporary culture. "Such symptom can also probably be seen in the various images of popular cultures, which in Indonesia are apparently being swiftly consumed," he continues. Dikdik's creative journey must indeed be understood as a search and loyalty in idioms of painting amid the overwhelming growth of media and signs in visual imagery. Such position forces him to create works dominated by spatial divisions and muiti-Iayered imagery. The exploration in the illusive dimension of painting will apparently continue in Dikdik's creative travels.

In his work, Black Bigots, Homage to Mama (2003), Dikdik constructs eight panels that consist of different subject matters into one piece of painting. Considering these multilayered narrations, Dikdik contests elements of nuances and contrasts within the edge of the different narrations into a whole context. Actually, all of those narrations came from his personal tragic experience regarding a sociai judgment and disbelief to his family's religious belief. Dikdik, indeed, re-works the art of painting in urging the personal and spiritual consideration in the age of material and mass culture. The delicate shade of black that moves into white color in this painting seems to question the "black or white" judgment that works socially. More than a kind of some advertising ideas, Dikdik chooses appearances of blurred images of people or things. Those images do not represent a certain symbol of sorts as a whole, but rather the appearance of memories that have been vaguely remembered or could not even be remembered.

Nurdian Ichsan, Rizki A. Zaelani

Born on August 22, 1973 in Majalengka.
Studied at Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Bandung (BFA; 1997) ( MFA; 2001).

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
1998 Drawing by 6 Artists, Red Point Gallery, Bandung.
1999 "Philip Morris Painting Competition Art Awards", National Gallery, Jakarta; "Asean Count Down", Jakarta; "Ecce Homo", Gallery of Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Sunan Gunung Jati, Bandung.
2000 "Figure in The New Century", Edwin Gallery, Jakarta; "Three Generations", Cipta II Gallery, Ismail Marzuki Cultural Centre (TIM), Jakarta.
2001 "Urban Stigma", Edwin Gallery, Jakarta; "From Abstract to Metaphore", Adira Gallery, Bandung.
2002 "Aura Machine", Fabriek Gallery, Bandung; "Age-Hibition", Edwin Gallery, Jakarta; "Reflections #1", Kita Gallery, Bandung.

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