ISTANA BOGOR - the making of

GILING PADI video

A fast and rough video made from a series of photographs of my "Giling Padi" painting to show its development from start to finish. Pardon the video quality as the photographs were taken in various lighting conditions

GILING PADI - Acrylic on canvas 50x60cm, 2017

This was a scene from one of my visits to Bali Indonesia where a group of men were working on a paddy field. It was harvest time and they were milling rice with a machine on the field, collecting the grains and bagging the stalks into sacks. The scene was so typical across Indonesia and in particular within Bali. It not only depicts the harvest of the staple food of the people - the rice - but it also illustrates the cooperative spirit of the community commonly referred to in Indonesia as "gotong royong".

I started the painting on October 3rd and finished it on October 31st. I took a series of time lapse photographs of the painting as it developed and I will make a movie out of the photo series.

JOKO WIDODO - watercolor on paper, 21x29cm, 2016

SAWAH SKETCH - water color and ballpoint pen on paper, 15x21cm, 2017

BARACK OBAMA - water color and ballpoint pen on paper, 15x21cm, 2017

ISTANA BOGOR - Acrylic on canvas 150x120cm, 2017

This is the biggest painting I have ever made so far. The palace was built by the Dutch and was partly rebuilt after a past earthquake in Bogor. There are two sides of the palace, this is the north side. The south side has large lily pond and is where many deers roam freely. There are deers on the north side too but I opted not to include them in this painting. The sight of the deers is my fondest childhood memory whenever me and my family drove past Bogor usually on our way to Bandung or Sukabumi. The background is Mount Salak - a dormant volcano. The big tree in the foreground is a Beringin tree with its many hanging roots.