We are thrilled to announce our participation to Art Miami 2023 with a solo presentation of new
works by Indonesian artist Suanjaya Kencut.
This project, titled “Guardian Galaxy”, will showcase a series of paintings,
never revealed before, focused on the exploration from different perspectives
of the figure of an unconventional superhero. This new body of works include
four round wood panels, 60 inches in diameter and four slightly smaller
rectangular canvases. The artist in his childhood, as most of the kids, has
aways wondered if he could have become a superhero and fly up into the sky
through the clouds, while wearing an old blanket as a cloak. But then was
getting suddenly discouraged because the traditional characters are depicted
as athletic, powerful, and dashing men and he didn’t have the stocky, strong
manly body seen every day on television. Another frustrating issue was that
commonly all the aliens that were landing from other planets looked like
monsters, were treated like enemies and needed to be exterminated. These
facts were raising further questions about aliens being evil or not, life outside
our world and if other planets had superheroes too.
This multi generational childhood fantasies could appear shabby but are able
to lift extremely sensitive and contemporary issues as long as to generate a
strong interest from a very variegated audience, boosting from Kawaii art lovers
to sci-fi movies, comics and video games aficionados to figures collectors and
rising diversified social, gender and psychological interpretations. This pushed
Suanjaya to bring his childhood reveries into this new series. He fantasizes
about superheroes not following any predetermined physical or gender
stereotype, not only existing in the human world, but in other parts of the
universe, and about aliens being friendly, graceful and inclusive, not scary or
belligerent.
Kencut created his own planet inhabited by individuals who have radar shaped
ears, used for communicating with each other, as well as connecting with living
forms on other planets and in between galaxies. In the ‘Connection Series’ he
describes how they can walk in the air, swarm with each other accepting
everyone diversity, free from any discrimination, like an advanced social
community. The ‘Guardian Galaxy’ is the paladin of this progressive society and
the cloak, a symbol very important to the artist as a childhood memory and
previously explored in other series, defines the character stature. With the
existence of the superhero there is also his counterpart, the enemy, depicted in
the painting ‘The Villain’ without dreadful appearances or monstrous features,
defeated by ‘The Captain’, with the help of his friends, who, after the strenuous
battle, like every regular being, is tired and need to will chill a relax, together
with the companions he just saved, in the artwork ‘The Break’.