Arwin Hidayat

Artist Bio

Arwin Hidayat was born in Yogyakarta in 1983 and has been drawing since childhood. As an alumnus of the Indonesian Institute of Art, Yogyakarta, Arwin has channeled his influences and memories of childhood stories, told to him by his late father, as inspiration. He is known for his distinctive depictions of birds, serpents and distorted human forms, over the past few years Arwin Hidayat has received increasing attention and praise from within the local Yogyakarta art scene and the wider international art community. His artworks juxtapose everyday objects (buildings, vehicles, musical instruments, animals) alongside the explicit (phalluses and orifices). A single image in his dense batik-patterned tableaux can be a point of departure for a storyline that draws on mythology, spiritually and history to create a contemporary narrative.

Arwin exhibits extensively in Indonesia and abroad, with three solo exhibitions to date. In 2017, Kedai Kebun Forum (KKF) hosted his exhibition Gombal, with KKF director Agung Kurniawan showing the full spectrum of Indonesia’s cultural complexities through his batiks. He continues to gain international attention, with a display at KunstRAI Art Amsterdam in 2018 and a commission to produce new works, incorporating batik and sewing, for a 2019 group exhibition at the Asia Museum of Modern Art in Taichung, Taiwan.

Jopa Japu Bergas Waras

These works communicate the story of a mantra (as Javanese people say - Jopa Japu). This mantra is a phrase used when one tries to convince themselves of something, or sometimes it could be an utterance said before starting a prayer to heal the sick. For me personally, Jopa Japu also has a close relationship with the situation of this pandemic. I always try to convince and motivate myself to keep on working, building enthusiasm and also positive thinking, so that the sanity of the mind is maintained despite the difficult situation.

The mantra usually starts out with a short phrase, ‘Bismillah, Jopa Japu’ and ends with ‘Alhamdulillah’. These phrases are believed to have a power to remove all negative energies. Bismillah in Islam is a word for good intentions and usually used in every single wish or prayer made, and ‘Alhamdulilah’ is a word of gratitude like ‘Amen’ or ‘Thank you’. The complete mantra is ‘Bismillah Jopa Japu, ilang sarap sawane kari bagas waras segere’. This translates as ‘Bismillah, hopefully all negative things will disappear, and I hope that health and well-being will always be given to us all’. (Always be healthy as well as sane during the pandemic).

Bismillah Jopa Japu is essentially a mantra/prayer/wish to block any negative reinforcement in an Islamic-Javanese way.

SELECTED WORKS

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