Yunizar

Yunizar (born June 1971) is an Indonesian artist.

He was born in Talawi, West Sumatra, Indonesia.

The 'coretan' paintings, a series which began from the late 1990s, may be said to be frustratingly elusive, delightfully enigmatic.

These works are composed of illegible scribbling, rendered in lines repeated across the canvas.

The scribbling appears as fragments of text, a diarylike parchment of thoughts that struggles to find form or intelligible representation.

The repetition and technique in scribbling marks a desire for meaning to be limitless in perspective.

The spontaneous lines are a reflection of the artist's inhibition with the constricting form both text and image sometimes takes.

In 1995, he was awarded "Best Painting" from the Peksiminas lll Exhibition in Jakarta and in 1998, he was awarded "Top 10" from the highly prestigious Phillip Morris ASEAN Art Award V.

Yunizar's subjects are often close to his heart and everyday life, simple and recognizable.

Yet beneath this simplicity lies a deeper theme.

To a casual observer, his titles for his works may appear uninspired.

But upon delving deeper, one will find that they often provide a hint of mystery to his portraits whilst adding an element of cynicism.

He is a painter whose works may be described by an attempt to advance his preoccupation for still-life.

Bottles, potted-cactus, apples and other elements are painted singly, and later reproduced in simplified outlines, eventually multiplying exponentially as minuscule elements on a vast canvas, as crammed two-dimensional landscapes choking on its own reproductive capacity.

At other times he obliterates this multiplicity, displacing it with a single figure, or a head, unsmiling, disfigured and consumed by a sense of estrangement or exile.

In a distinctive series Coretan (Marks), lines and markings are deployed as frantic utterance.

Obfuscating and never declaring any form of intent.

However, the sense of narrative is kept remaining in the fringes of the frame, is eternally held in anxious tension.

One of Indonesia's most dynamic new artists, Yunizar draws from a rich heritage to create images that evoke memories of dreams and myths as well as the mundane.

Yunizar spent his formative years at the Indonesian Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta.

This is a school of national pride and the heart of progressive art-making in Indonesia.

Historically, Yogyakarta is the seat of traditional, global and popular fused in a fertile and stimulating environment, culminating in an art scene that is bold and original.

Yunizar's training and maturity shines through with his palette make-up; faded colours, sun bleached and weather fatigued.

The colours reflect his surroundings in Indonesia and remains a constant theme in his works.

This restrained palette of yellows, browns and greens is juxtaposed with society's craving for all things new and bright.

It hints at his desire to deconstruct the audience's notions of beauty, and how it is composed.

For Yunizar, beauty in art comes through complex compositions that introduce different ways of perceiving things.

Preferring to play with empty spaces, his paintings carry his signature abstract style with a focus on texture that invites the viewer to reach out for a feel.

He understands and manipulates materials, working primarily in acrylic and pencil, artfully building volume and anti-rhythm with his brushwork and setting forth impressions through contrast and lines, forms and colours.

Coretan: Recent Works by Yunizar Exhibition

He graduated in 1999 with a degree in Fine Arts from Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta (ISI), a school of national pride and the heart of progressive art-making in Indonesia.

Creativity and change are the forefront of the school's agenda and this is evident in Yunizar's work ethic.

Yunizar's training reveals itself in his sophisticated expressive style, articulated through a playful composition and subtle palette.

Executed primarily in acrylic and pencil, his works stand out in terms of texture, colour, brushwork and rhythm.

A restrained palette of cool colours- yellows, browns and greens- is deliberately dirtied and smudged in his working and reworking of the canvas.

The result is a highly tactile work that entices the viewer to feel the piece.

Born a Minang, Yunizar felt at home at Yogyakarta and decided to remain in the city with his wife and children after graduation.

There, he co-founded the Jendela Art Group, Jendela which means window in Bahasa Indonesian, together with his Minang peers namely Handiwirman Saputra, Jumaldi Alfi, Yusra Martunus and Rudi Mantofani.

Jendela Art Group is Indonesia's most prominent contemporary art collective and has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Coretan, Yunizar's Solo Exhibition at the National University of Singapore Museum in 2008 became the cornerstone of the artist's signature style.