Recreating details of a natural ecosystem on a canvas, young Bandung-based artist Hilman Hendarsjah chooses to take his audience through a journey of the latter type.

Birds take center stage in his current solo exhibition "Visual Biotic", but they are drawn in such a way as to evoke mixed feelings of awe and irony.

In the exhibition, at the Elcanna Fine Art in South Jakarta, Hilman displays a dozen works that seek to convey yet another warning to humans of the effects of our destructive hands.

An important addition to the quiet surreal landscape, those human hands almost always appear in the series of drawings.

Fingers appear here and there, broken or breaking, adding a sense of an intervening force invading what was a working ecosystem, causing drought and extinction.

In Anseriformes, a hand holds a pencil beside a lone duck; in Pandu Madu a newborn bird squeaks as fingers grip its neck.

"Hilman offers more than just aesthetics," curator Aminudin TH Siregar wrote of the exhibition. "He also contains *in his drawings* a critical view of environmental degradation and the fact that mankind often fails to tend to nature."

Having known the artist since his college days, Siregar explained that the series is a result of Hilman's long personal interest in and observation of how components of an ecosystem interact with one another.

"He specifically works on anatomy, physiology, evolution, ethology and ecology," Siregar added. "He fully realized that his interest in biology would open up his understanding of the uniqueness of artistic processes and results."

Although the critical views of his works are nothing new, his presentation is unique.

Style-wise, Hilman mixes his interest of nature with his past pursuit of surreal images, an influence from being inspired by German surrealist pioneer Max Ernst.

"Hilman is said to have been inspired by Ernst in his visual composition, especially in combining images of human and animal in building something surreal," Siregar said.

Technically, the canvas proportion that he chooses fits the surreal landscape he wants to create, despite it being merely a habit he got into after getting used to drawing on small scraps of waste paper.

The artist's surreal drawings are enhanced by his smooth rendering techniques.

The result is mostly in black and white, with a splash of color in a couple of works.

Black-and-white mixed-media drawings are his strong point.

Being formally taught in the graphic art department of Bandung Institute of Technology's School of Art, Hilman chose to focus on drawing, a technique that in the past was considered inferior to painting but is now gaining more recognition.

In the Indonesian art world, it is mostly those formally educated in the art of sculpture and graphics that feel that they are more connected with drawing techniques, Siregar explained.

Being used to monochrome visualization, this type of artists usually choose to draw because of the technique's simple requirements. With no need for special tools or expensive studios, armed rather with just a meticulous touch, drawing artists are ready to get to work.

Hilman is perhaps part of the current generation who can proudly proclaim to be a drawing artist without that being taken for granted. This is the result of two decades of struggle from his predecessors, among them are Satyagraha and Isa Perkasa, Siregar explained.

"Hilman Hendarsjah is a representative of the young artists who have enriched the dynamics of drawing in the current art development."

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