“Nothing Perfect Noise,” the latest solo exhibition from musician and artist Soni Irawan, succinctly encapsulates his approach to music. 

Playful, yet with a sense of chaos and dissonance, the artist’s works suggest a nuance similar to the music of his band, the Yogyakarta noise-rock group Seek Six Sick.

Running through Oct. 30 at D Gallerie in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, the exhibition showcases Soni’s acrylic paintings, intaglio and relief print on paper, as well as installations.

Titled after Seek Six Sick’s recent comeback album, “Nothing Perfect Noise” presents a mixture of pieces obviously taking its inspiration from music, along with others that suggests social commentary. 

Musically inspired pieces include Broken Records, which depicts its title literally, as well as Flying Horse, which fuses cracked vinyl with sketches of a horse’s head, dragonflies and a few wayang characters.

Contrasting colors and obscured characters are found atop each other in a somewhat haphazard and chaotic setting in his paintins. The focus remains mostly in these characters’ faces and heads of a cartoonish, if not absurdist, nature. Some of these wild elements are reminiscent of the work of legendary artist Basquiat. 

Writer Alia Sastika, who curated the event, has been a longtime fan of Soni and Seek Six Sick. She praises his ability to inject his art with equal emotional abandon as he does in his music.

She said the canvases in the exhibition feel as though they were an attempt at creating the similar kind of “chaotic composition” that is found in Seek Six Sick’s music.

Alia points to Soni’s use of daring colors in his paintings that seem to consciously serve a lowbrow esthetic.

“The compositions are consciously made to clash, with unusual anatomies and proportions. So initially, they make us feel a little uneasy with the visuals that are served,” said Alia.

“For Soni, every shape can be distorted and taken out of the usual conventions of realism or visual shapes. Just like noise music, these pictures lend a feeling of spontaneity and freedom, eschewing harmonies and certainly, perfection,” she said.

Indeed, Soni applied the methods he uses in his music to create his visual art pieces.

“I did it all spontaneously and without sketching it beforehand, like a jam session,” he said. “This makes everything more honest, without too many unnecessary bells and whistles, or manipulation to create something that is perfect.” 

“This is why the colors are not perfect yet free, avoiding the usual theories in color mixing. Even when there is a mistake, I just piled another picture on it.” 

The process, Soni says, is exactly the way his band mixes different genres of music.

Alia says Soni’s art and music are a metaphor for “the courage to find one’s self and to express it amidst all the pressures of succumbing to the uniformity of taste.”

For Soni himself, the exhibition also works as his reentry to the art world, in which he has been inactive for a while.

“I wanted to hold an exhibition that would mirror my musical taste and character, so if someone takes a look at my artwork, they would also be able to get a sense of how my music sounds. I wanted to put both my art and music at the same level,” says Soni.

The exhibition’s title also has its roots in Seek Six Sick lore, something that Soni purposely held onto over the years.

“‘Nothing Perfect Noise’ visualizes the process of creation, and refers to how there is no perfect sound in existence. In fact, the perfection of noise music lies in its imperfection. Just like humans with our lives — we’re merely trying to create composition and chaos, unintentional intensions. What we seek is not perfection but honesty in creation.”

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