White Space Art Asia is excited to announce that Ronald Apriyan will be coming to Art Taipei this year. Held from 19 to 23 October this year, Art Taipei is an annual art fair that connects the forefront of art from around the world to explore the topic of global art trends while focusing on diverged art forms. This year, we will showcase Apriyan’s latest series of works on the international stage.
“Antihero” originated from the Greek word “heros”. Heros, or hero in English, fundamentally refers to a man born from a god and a mortal. He turns the impossible into possible and overcomes all odds in his lifetime. Conversely, his opposing counterpart, the antihero, diverges from the mythical perfection he embodies. The antihero possesses a greater sense of realism and relatability.
In this series of works, Ronald Apriyan renders popular icons, like Joker and Harley Quinn, with a shade of innocence that is quintessential to his artistic style. What do these characters have in common? At the very least, they are antiheroes fabricated by our imagination. Antiheroes grew in prominence in the literary scene in the early 20th century. Their popularity rose even further following the end of the Second World War. What is it that draws us to antiheroes?
While heroes motivate and inspire us to trudge forward in the arduous journey of life, antiheroes offer us a kind of comfort that reaches the depth of our souls. We long to break the arbitrary rules imposed on us. We desire to seek redress for the wrongs that befell us. The moral grayness of antiheroes validates our grievances and coos over our socially deviant actions that are as minuscule as simply harboring a petty, inconsequential thought. It whispers to our tattered hearts that whatever we failed to fulfill was not so much due to our incompetence, but rather because of a gaping fault in the society we are stuck in. This series of works by Indonesian artist Ronald Apriyan invites you to tend to your wounds and bruises and remind yourself that you are only human.
ABOUT RONALD APRIYAN
Apriyan’s works are representative theses that marry his innovative belief to a strong artistic vision. He uses art as a medium to arrest and portray alternative narratives of quotidian lives and intermingle it with stories of the fantastical and the imaginary. His oeuvre deals with social issues and the intimate psyche of urban dwellers in a rapidly growing nation, wistful for the memories of the yesteryears while unable to cope with the changing landscapes of their youth.
In spite of its underlying messages, Ronald’s works are still often playful and injected with humour and pathos. It could be regarded as a reverse bildungsroman, where one chooses to deliberately return to a child-like state, innocent and unadulterated. Indeed, Ronald’s works transport its viewers and suspend them in a liminal space where personal history and cultural paradigms form the basis for a nascent, hybrid worldview.
