Luz Series 3. Courtesy of Sigiarts Gallery

This is a story of a father and his daughter. Eddi Prabandono, a 39-year-old artist from Yogyakarta has a very special relationship with his daughter Luz (now 4 years old), a relationship that has played a unique role in his development as an artist and has influenced his art in a way that perhaps he could never have imagined.

The personal themes that he explores have resulted in touching yet impressive work, now being presented in a solo exhibition at Sigiarts Gallery in Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta.

The exhibition features three works, each in a different medium and all with the same theme: the lovely head and face of little Luz.

The three works are a massive clay installation four meters long and four meters high, and a similarly massive painting and steel sculpture. It is fascinating how with only three works, the artist succeeds in filling the space and, despite each having the same subject, there is no feeling of redundancy.

The title of the exhibition, "Strategic Presentation: Sculpture, Luz and Illusion", takes the personal and intimate subject of the works and makes it into something more conceptual, particularly in the effort to redefine the personal meaning of sculpture.

Eddi's work in this exhibition is an extension of his breakthrough work at the 2007 Biennale Jogja. Until then, he was not active in the Indonesian art scene. A graduate of the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta, Eddi was part of the early movement of Indonesian contemporary visual arts in the 1990s, where he had his debut solo exhibition at the most prestigious gallery of the time, Cemeti Contemporary Art Gallery (now called Cemeti Art House). After marrying Nana Miyagi, an artist based in Okinawa, he spent much time in Japan and held several solo exhibitions in Okinawa.

The installation at the 2007 Biennale Jogja, which was the first time Eddi presented a large clay sculpture to the public, focused on the essence of the material - clay - and made its presentation extreme by way of scale.

With this new work, the artist has expanded his focus to share more deeply the story behind the form, moving from an exploration of material and form to an exploration of content. The result is, as the exhibition title suggests, interestingly strategic. The very title of the exhibition leads viewers to feel the contradictory atmosphere of the showroom which creates strong desires both to view Luz's face up close and to explore the intimate and nostalgic emotions generated by our own memories.

Eddi used 10 tons of clay, trucked in from Yogyakarta, to realize this site-specific project. It took him two weeks to install that clay in the chosen form. For the gallery owner, Rachel Ibrahim, that effort posed a very interesting challenge, as this is the gallery's first on-site installation project.

"The exhibition space was transformed into a studio for the artist during the preparation period," Ibrahim said. "This is unique and we came up with the idea of documenting the entire process to be able to share with the public the challenges involved in realizing the artistic vision."

Hendro Wiyanto, the exhibition curator, noted an important question to address when viewing Eddi's work: "Does the *largeness' of the sculpture not strengthen its objective difference from us, from the audience's existence and actual experience?"

To this viewer, the answer is yes. The size of the sculpture shakes the audience into awareness of the actuality of the exhibition space. Also interesting is that, by using clay, the artist recognizes the transience of his own work. Most sculptures are based on the idea of permanence, whether made from bronze, resin, steel or another medium. But in creating this kind of site-specific project with the awareness that it will last only as long as the exhibition, the artist must be acutely aware of the intimacy of the whole process and its medium.

In celebrating his special relationship with Luz, Eddi chooses this way to tell the story of his life; in return, it evoked memories of the father-child relationship in this viewer's mind. Did Eddi, when he worked over each inch of that clay, remember how those same hands felt when he first held baby Luz four years ago?

This is truly a meaningful comeback by an artist, where he is not only redefining himself and his whole aesthetic vision, but is also telling a beautiful story that marks an important shift in his identity as human being, from free individual to father.

Strategic Presentation: Sculpture, Luz and Illusion

A solo exhibition by Eddi Prabandono
Until Aug. 10
Sigiarts Gallery
Jalan Mahakam I No 11
Kebayoran Baru
Jakarta 12130

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