Prominent local and international faces greet visitors at the “Kundalini Bumi” (Earth Kundalini) art exhibition at the Salihara Gallery in South Jakarta.

The pictures of the public figures grab the attention of anyone entering the room, but after taking a closer look, there’s more to be seen than just the faces in the paintings.

The “Kundalini Bumi” art exhibition by contemporary artist Dipo Andy features a collection of collages composed of Google Earth images and pictures of famous people, over which he places Lapindo mud smears, strengthening them with colors.

 “Through Google images, we can see visuals of how beautiful Earth is, but I also want to show how Earth has been damaged by humans,” Dipo said.

Through using famous people in his work, Dipo said he could help people remember the message he was trying to convey. “I tried to apply the method that many advertising people use, the power of famous people in their products. Maybe that can help, too,” he said.

Dipo, whose latest work appeared at the 2013 Art Stage Singapore in January, started work on the displayed paintings in 2007, finishing most of it a year later.

A total of 111 paintings are curated by Asikin Hasan and Nirwan Dewanto and will run until April 2 at the Salihara Gallery.

Celebrity: Soccer star David Beckham is one of many famous figures portrayed in Andy’s contemporary art works. Courtesy of Salihara Gallery

Asikin said although his work was connected to pop art, Dipo had brought a different approach by using mud from the mud-hit area in Sidoarjo, East Java, while also developing visual ideas.

The exhibition, he said, showed his growth as an artist.

“His work is like a digital collage, the materials of which are taken from a search engine. But we should not immediately say that, because the work is trying to break out of limitations. This should be viewed as contemporary art,” Asikin said.

He said that in the paintings, images of Demi Moore, Michelle Yeoh, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie and many more looked flawlessly beautiful, depicting the visual reality nowadays that was controlled by the beauty and media industries.

The images of the Earth taken from the satellite cameras, which displayed the various real forms of the Earth’s surface, enriched the painting so that it looked abstract, he went on.

“Although the Earth’s surface images are not identified clearly in the paintings, they tell a lot about something that has undergone rapid changes,” Asikin said.

“The most provocative thing is the use of the mud as a medium,” he added.

On a 100 centimeter by 128 centimeter canvas, Dipo spread the mud directly taken from Sidoarjo. The mud is not a medium that can be used in two dimensional pieces of work, so Dipo used resin to fix it onto the canvas, which later produced various visual effects in the paintings.

Asikin said Dipo’s works could be seen as a stand-alone, or as an installation.

For example, in his work that features the former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Dipo only showed half of her face, while the other half was covered with the blood-like splashes of paint and the Earth’s surface image.

As if giving a final touch, he splattered the mud near her face and turned it into a machete-like item.  

“The names and some big events conveyed through the strong images here are the texts that are consciously structured by him. He invites us to help heal the wound on the Earth’s surface through the famous faces on the canvas,” Asikin said.

Another curator, Nirwan, said the “Kundalini Bumi” exhibition brought the idea of how nature’s destruction and the efforts to save the Earth had become a cliché. “I feel that these panels, structured in some way into a visual installation, have become a silent drama about how we have been very rigorously saving the earth, but to no avail,” Nirwan said.

Many of Dipo’s artworks displayed in the exhibition are full of bright colors. But Dipo has also experimented with dark colors to create a gloomy nuance in some of his paintings.

Nirwan said faces were an important element, but it was not as important as the colors that shaped, or disrupted, the paintings.

“The colors do not destroy the painting, they strengthen it,” he said.

 “We thought we just saw digital printing work, but we actually saw real paintings.”

He added that his paintings were like an intersection to — and a parody of — mass culture, graphic design, graphic arts and the art of painting itself.