The themes that appear frequently on Gusmen's canvases are mostly socio-political, or from the stories about his own existence in various situations. His mastery in expressing these matters came and grew from his close associations with his friends, from reading and observing the various news sources. There is almost no limit to what he will express on his canvases. All matters - be it social, political, or of the public interest - can be analyzed. They can all give him ideas for his works. See, for example, his works Thousand Mind [sic] (2002), Night Prayer (2003), Interogasi (Interrogation, 2000), Katebelece (The Attached Note, 2000), Adu Strategi (A Game of Strategy, 2000).

The same thing goes for the work displayed in this exhibition, Still Life with Scum (2003), where he depicts the brutality, wildness, naïveté, and the degeneration of a certain urban public. He sees a series of events in a ramshackle city where many problems are left unresolved. People no longer pay attention to the rules in the city; money reigns; the sweet promises of the powerful no longer have meanings. From this concern, another work is born, titled Night Prayer. This latter work is the antithesis of the former one, Still Life with Scum. In Night Life, Gusmen offers his true wishes that people would always be praying (just like himself in the painting), as he sees that people are too busy with their problems and "sickness." Here he offers and reports on some new awareness. This is the form of "interpellation" that Gusmen offers: an 'interpellation' toward some better awareness and morality.

Gusmen has always been offering his thoughts on matters that many may think as cliché. Visually, however, he has created a personal style that tends to be naïve and wild, generating in his works an atmosphere of chaos, viciousness, and incongruity. He has also created absurd and weird-looking figures that strengthen the ferocity of his mind. In almost all of his works, he portrays the figures of humans who look absurd and weird - sometimes their bodies are blackened and dismembered, sometimes they appear to be twisted, without some clear anatomy but with a strong and robust neck. In another work, he depicts a grinning figure, with sharp but neat teeth, its tongue stuck out, its eyes wide open, and with strong, robust hands clenching on various objects.

Another artistic sensibility of Gusmen's is manifested in the chaotic lines drawn on the biggest part of his canvas. Apparently, he always finds himself ecstatic when drawing the thousand lines (which he says have neither meanings nor idealistic goals). The chaotic lines are born from the desire to create some artistic atmosphere and to attain some visual mastery. He has neither political nor thematic goals in creating those lines. He then inserts various letters, figures, numbers, things, or other objects and nuances in the empty parts of his canvases.

Mike Susanto

Born on August 18, 1974 in Pariaman.
Study at Indonesia Institute of The Arts (ISI), Yogyakarta (1995).

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
1998 Yogyakarta Arts Festival (FKY) X, Vredeburg Fortress Museum, Yogyakarta; Phillip Morris Art Awards, National Gallery, Yogyakarta; "Reflections of Age", Vredeburg Fortress Museum, Yogyakarta .
1999 Yogyakarta Arts Festival (FKY) XI, Vredeburg Fortress Museum, Yogyakarta; Phillip Morris Art Awards, National Gallery, Jakarta; Group Exhibition of the GENTA, Purna Budaya Art Centre, Yogyakarta.
2000 Young Artists, Purna Budaya Art Centre, Yogyakarta; Yogyakarta Arts Festival (FKY) XII, Vredeburg Fortress Museum, Yogyakarta.
2001 "Reality II" GREGET '95 Group, Purna Budaya Art Centre, Yogyakarta.
2002 Indofood Art Awards, Jakarta & Bali.

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