Reinterpreting Dimensions: Appropriation, Texture & Canvas

This exploration continues the artist's ongoing inquiry into the possibilities of dimensionality within painting. In the series Balance & Relative Truth, the artist explored visual dimensions through appropriation, selecting and enlarging fragments from the works of Vincent van Gogh and Mark Rothko to construct new visual experiences. This exploration subsequently developed in Reconstructing the Canvas, where the artist's attention shifted towards the material potential of canvas, considering it not merely as a flat surface, but as a flexible material capable of physically producing dimensional forms. These two explorations became the foundation for further investigations into translating visual experiences through different material forms and structures.

In this series, the artist revisits the approach of appropriation by selecting Affandi's work, particularly Boats at the Beach, as a visual reference. The expressive character and textural qualities of Affandi's paintings are among the reasons for this choice, alongside a sense of affinity through their shared identity as Indonesian artists. However, this appropriation does not seek to imitate Affandi's style or painting techniques, but rather to reinterpret the visual experience of texture and dimensionality found in his work.

While texture and depth in Affandi's paintings emerge through expressive gestures and the accumulation of paint, the artist seeks to translate these qualities through a different approach: manipulating the physical structure of the canvas itself. Through actions such as pulling, pressing, folding, and shaping its surface, canvas is explored as a flexible material capable of generating volume, depth, and tangible texture.

Through this approach, the artist seeks to open up alternative possibilities for understanding dimensionality in painting. Dimension is no longer conveyed solely through the illusion of space or the thickness of paint, but also through the transformation of the canvas's form and structure. In this sense, appropriation becomes a process of translating visual experience into a different material language, while continuing the artist's exploration of the relationships between plane and space, surface and volume, and imagery and the physical presence of a painting.