Dedy Sufriadi

Biography

Dedy, an Indonesian painter, was born in 1976. In 1995, he began painting in Jogjakarta, where he was later identified as a promising young artist. Further on in his life, Dedy joined a thriving creative community in Jogjakarta.

Much of Dedy’s work is inspired by his life experience thus far, and is a symbolism of his own spiritual journey or the essence of a subject that moved him to begin painting. Dedy is well known for producing large-scale abstracts and graffiti art, which can be seen all around Indonesia. Graffiti art has been oneof his great influences as an artist, and is often reflected by the addition of words on canvases. These texts are visually derived and have their origins in Dedy’s mindscape during his personal creative artistic process. In addition to this, Dedy also expresses his painting through highly graphic images and lines, achieved through the ‘flatness’ of acrylic paint.

Despite the simplicity of his work, Dedy eloquently expresses to the viewer, his spirit as a painter. His works invoke an underlying tension, but do not seek to overwhelm. In his “World Under” series, bold lines and black text-like motifs are contrasted with soft warm hues of oranges and browns. A small border of white at the top of the paintings reminds us that this is a representation of the landscape of an alternate universe envisioned by the painter, which although exists in our world is, at the same time, not of our world.

Chroma is an element Dedy is certainly not afraid of and he employs them liberally in some of his other paintings such as “Lingkaran” and “Flying Object #2”. Although these paintings lack the contrasting elements of his “World Under” series, the tension of his paintings are still evident in the various brushstrokes and techniques he uses in the application of his paint. Geometrically accurate and almost stencil-like circles are offset with a backdrop of fluid brushstrokes and the chaos of an orb of a suspend squiggles and dashes are made distinct by a single strip of colored spectrum.

Dedy first exhibited his works at a tender age of twenty in Indonesia, one year after he began painting in Jogjakarta. It was then that he also accepted his first awards for his abstracts, which was deemed a phenomenal achievement. In 1998, he was honored as a Finalist in the Winsor & Newton Art Competition. A Nokia Art Award soon followed this in 1999, and in 2000 Dedy was named a Finalist in the prestigious Philip Morris-Indonesia Art Awards.

Selected Exhibitions