Known for his expertise in stencil art and spray painting, Yogyakarta-based Indonesian street artist Anagard participated in NAFA’s Southeast Asian Virtual Art residency hosted by ISEAA in 2022. Subsequently, he held his solo exhibition in 2024 at NAFA in a major showcase of over 80 works by him and his collaborators. Anagard embraced the spirit of street art and community engagement through his artmaking, transforming found objects, such as crates, flour sacks, and discarded tyres into his canvases. Through arranged collaborations, he expanded the possibilities of his craft beyond walls, working with artists and makers in Indonesia and Singapore from diverse fields – props making, traditional printmaking, digital art and video to create works that sparked meaningful conversations about culture, diversity and social concerns; challenging the often-negative perception and connotation of street art, broadening public engagement.
NAFA alumna, founder of COFA studio and printmaker Cathrine Oslo, Singaporean props maker 556 Industries and 11 Indonesian artists each created a piece in their distinctive style based on or inspired by Anagard’s work. As a printmaker, Cathrine specialises in the medium of woodcut. A conversation between the two artists in 2023 led to an intricate woodcut installation of 27 interactive boards that revealed the contrast of two personalities. The colourful boldness of Anagard’s “Legitimasi Organic” showing an exchange of a gift between two figures on one side and the other, an introspective narrative of Cathrine’s “Red String” in a cosmic tale based on the artist’s life story as told, her experiences as a Chinese growing up as Indonesian and her education through learning and travel.
As a props maker, 556 Industries was intrigued by Anagard’s exploration of identities and chose to interpret Anagard’s “All Humanity Welcome” as a dystopian world of suffering inflicted by human greed and indifference. The team created a diorama of four figures on a barren landscape in dramatic poses covered in PPE (personal protective equipment) with incorporated motifs from Minang culture. Armed with his spray paint and stencils, Anagard completed the work in Singapore, adding colour and interpretation to these identities, imbuing his perspective of the world as an artist living in Indonesia facing issues of economic and political inequalities, urging a message of peace and the better good.
11 Indonesian artists from Yogyakarta who collaborated with him through posters, videos and street art are Deden Hardiansyah, Meriang, Ddieono Pop, Pangestumu, Maulana Deris, Otong Tapalan, Windi Delta, Adril Wak Yong, Iwan Nurhadi, Media Legal and Wimbo Praharso.
Over 5 days from 7 to 11 October, Cathrine Oslo and the ISEAA team delivered short presentations to close to 200 students as part of NAFA’s General Studies module. The interaction opportunity with Cathrine saw students asking questions, learning first-hand about her creative process and sharing printmaking techniques while appreciating the larger context of cross-border collaborative work and finding one’s voice as an artist. The 11th edition of NAFA’s Southeast Asian Art Clinic on 9 October 2024 took place with both Anagard and Cathrine present in Singapore. Students shared their reflections and findings based on their works in the exhibition; the stimulating discussions spanned conceptual ideas and practical approaches to art-making, facilitated a vibrant exchange of ideas between practising artists and aspiring young creatives.
