Midori Hirota was born in Nagoya, Japan, and had worked in Bali since the beginning of 1990s after graduating from Aichi University of Fine Art. Besides working as an artist there, Midori also made crafts and wrote reports for the various mass media in Japan. In 1998, she moved to Yogyakarta.

Midori is enchanted by the abundant religious symbols in the daily life of a Balinese. She feels that she has found the media to express her faith in God without using a particular religious institution. This is because the creative construction in visual art enables her to work on those symbols, turning them into personal icons. The icons are usually merged with Midori's previous decorative tendencies, combined with texts of a unique style.

Explanations on the arbitrary nature of signs provide us with vast possibilities to form relations with the various signs in works of art. Many artists mulled over how viewers know the relations among the signs they use in their works. Midori usually handles this problem through compositions. Installation projects, because of their three-dimensional nature, have a lot more varied composition aspects--especially when compared with paintings whose two-dimensional compositions are restricted to the plane of the canvas. In Duduk di Sini (Sit Down Here, mixed media, 1993), Midori combined two chairs with a vertical ladder. On the background were abstract paintings of some plants and organic motives. The whole work was painted in bright colors. On the wall, at the left side of the chairs, was the text: "duduk di sini dulu" ("sit down here for a moment"). At the right side of the ladder was another text: "sampai Tuhan datang" ("until God arrives").

Midori's habit to compose icons also extends to realms other than religiosity. Most of the times, she also dwells on the question on her identity. Her Balinese icons become Midori's hallmark at the beginning of her artistic career in Indonesia. It seems that Midori always begins from what she wants to convey in her works, then she composes the icons, and lastly she completes her works with texts. Or perhaps she can begin whenever she pleases.

The icons, the relation between the different visual elements and the text, and other elements such as sound, all are created not only within a personal space, but also refer to the artist herself. This has its own risks, one of them being the possibility that viewers merely perceive a jumble of juxtaposition in her works. This can happen when, for example, the overall visual image the viewers get become one thing, and the appropriation of meanings on the texts become another. Midori's choice to base her works on icons becomes indeed the source of visual attraction, but at the same time, it shows how signs can always be repositioned. It also reveals how in arts, signs tend to float around.

Heru Hikayat

Studied at Aichi University of Fine Art, Japan (BFA; 1988), Indonesia Institute of The Arts (ISI), Yogyakarta (BFA; 2000).

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1998 "Mitsukoshi Hoshigaoka", Nagoya, Japan.
1999 Denpasar Cultural Centre, Denpasar, Bali.
2000 Benda Art Space, Yogyakarta.
2001 Kedai Kebun, Yogyakarta.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1998 "Contemporary Art Exhibition",R 66 Gallery, Bandung.
1999 "Wearable", Padi Gallery, Bandung - Bentara Budaya Art Centre, Yogyakarta - Sika Gallery, Bali.
2000 "ART & PEACE", Denpasar Cultural Centre, Denpasar, Bali; "ARTIST BOOK PROJECT", Westbeth Gallery, Nagoya - K Gallery, Kyoto - Gendai Gallery, Japan.
2001 "SHUL", Sembilan Gallery, Bali.
2002 "WALL PAINTING PROJECT Yogyakarta City" (3 locations with 18 artists), Yogyakarta.
2003 Group Exhibition of the SANGGAR DEWATA, Socitet Building, Yogyakarta Cultural Centre, Yogyakarta.

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