The artist Mulyana — whose crochet images of coral and creatures living under the sea have fascinated young and old alike — has been given the honor by ARTJOG to create the commissioned work that introduces the fair themed “Enlightenment: Toward Various Futures”.

Amid a host of young contemporary artists today who try hard to enter the global mainstream with intricate advanced technologies, the 34-year-old Mulyana flows naturally, evolving into an awe-inspiring stream that is entirely his own.

He does so applying the age-old woman’s knitting of crochet — a craft he started a decade ago creating the most beautiful coral scapes. Mulyana confesses there is always a sense of fear underneath a wealth of beauty. 

“When seeing and experiencing extreme beauty, there is always a hidden fear of what lies behind and what could come after,” he said, explaining his plans for the commissioned work for the month-long art fair in Yogyakarta.

“I’m thinking of a diamond shape that holds the notion of a bomb inside it,” he continues, shocking me at first, for the peace-loving Mulyana is not the violent type. 

Of course, what he means is the notion of an explosion. When one enters the 9-meter-tall diamond shaped installation with a 12-m-diameter, suggesting entering the underwater world, one will be hit by an overwhelming burst of fascinating coral, fish and other creatures living in the underwater world of the wide seas. 

Amid all that is beautiful. Mulyana may place a skull as a token denoting the horrible depletion of the coral world currently taking place in Indonesia and the world at large. The work that is still in progress will be fittingly named Sea Remembers.

ARTJOG’s Heri Pemad said he had observed Mulyana for quite some time and had been impressed by the artist’s seriousness, his intricate precision and consistent quality of his work. 

“Not only is Mulyana unique in that he uses a medium that is generally thought of as female craft but his work is of fine quality and he has shown admirable consistency,” says Pemad.

Mulyana started his love affair with crochet at Tobucil in Bandung, West Java — a place to hang out while doing other activities, from playing with origami and 3D, to knitting and crochet. “I like crochet because I can do it anywhere and anytime,” he said.

When Tobucil’s owner, Tarlen Handayani, returned from a trip to the United States where he had seen an exhibition of coral, he suggested the topic to Mulyana.

Mul, as the artist is known, reveals he has always loved to be at the seaside and he gladly took up the theme, creating his signature in the form of an octopus with long tentacles.

“People are usually scared of the octopus,” he said, “but my octopus is benign. Its long tentacles denote it will be able to do various good things.”

Mogus — as he calls his crocheted alter ego — stands for Monster, Gurita and Sigarantang his family name. Mogus appears in various colors, it could be pink, yellow, orange or gray.

To make a house for Mogus was the next thing, and it became the central point of his thesis at the Indonesia Education University. The work was exhibited as Mogus World at Gerilya gallery and Kedai Kebun gallery in Yogyakarta. 

Mul said there was the notion in Yogyakarta that an exhibition was successful when it was visited by a curator. Therefore, he was very happy when curator Asmudjo Jono Irianto from Bandung visited his exhibition.

From then on, Asmudjo invited him to participate in joint exhibitions and he obliged, with his works exhibited at the Indonesia National Gallery, Art One Museum and CG gallery in Jakarta; Lawangwangi Creative Space and Selasar Sunaryo in Bandung.

His moment of truth came at ArtJog 2015, where his work responded well to ARTJOG’s theme “Infinity in flux”, and both the general public and collectors were delighted. 

He also received an invitation to exhibit in Kuala Lumpur at Chandan Gallery and in the same year in Victoria, Australia. His work at “Imaginarium” at the Singapore Art Museum 8Q in 2016 was particularly successful.

French Guillaume Lévy Lambert and his partner Mark of Art Porters gallery in Singapore also “discovered” Mulyana at ARTJOG 2015. 

“It was love at first sight,” said Lambert. Art Porters invited Mulyana to participate in their various exhibitions, including in its booth at Art Stage Singapore and recently Art Porters organized a solo exhibition for Mulyana at Art Central during Art Basel Hong Kong. 

In his Cloud Atlas series, Mulyana said he had been inspired by the clouds reflected in the sea.

He said he was saddened when snorkeling in Lombok and Gili Islands in West Nusa Tenggara where he saw that coral was actually dying and only the fish remained colorful. “The fish had nothing to eat, they ate the bread that I brought along,” he says. 

And while swimming he looked down on the floating fish, he imagined he was floating too — seeing the coral like clouds down under. 

He named these works after the terms used to classify clouds according to their height, texture and appearance from the ground.

Not all his works are colorful. There are two works that are gray and black, denoting death and destruction by polluting ash.

Meanwhile, the huge installation for ARTJOG, which opens on May 4, may well denote the peak of his life with Mogus — the fantastical octopus nurturing his fascinating imagination of life under the sea.

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