The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) Catalogue

Artists The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 128 Parhelion 2021 Acrylone butadine styrene plastic, stainless steel and lacquer paint / 300 x 500cm / Courtesy: The artist and ROH Projects, Jakarta 22 Degree 2021 Acrylone butadine styrene plastic, stainless steel and lacquer paint / 200 x 300cm Anthelion 2021 Wood, canvas and lacquer paint / 25 modules: 120 x 275cm (each) Courtesy: The artist and ROH Projects, Jakarta Advances in scientific understanding and technology have made us rethink colour theory, and this makes space to revisit the abstract genre. While abstraction is a less common field of discourse in Indonesia’s art history, Syagini Ratna Wulan has become a prominent proponent of it, drawing broad influences from colour theory and Western science to digital and screen-based contemporary culture. Ratna Wulan only started painting in 2016; however, it has since become a signature aspect of her practice, which continues to include installations, participatory projects and representational works. Deeply concerned with the corporeal reception and interactive possibilities of abstraction, she is fascinated by the unique way we perceive colour visually and the individual sensibilities colours can exude. Natural phenomena, such as rainbows and spectral colours, the physics of light emission and mathematical theory all inform these ruminations on the perceptual qualities of colour Ratna Wulan explores through distinctive explorations of light, hues and form. Aware that her own studies are primarily viewed through digital screens, which often fail to represent true or constant colours, Ratna Wulan also contemplates how we consume colour through images today. The fact that our viewing experience is altered by the wideranging variance of artificial light and by using computers and gadgets — as well as the awareness that digital images are often manipulated and distorted — contributes to the intrigue and ambiguity of colour reception and optical effects Ratna Wulan explores. Reference imagery is generally sourced from social media and the internet and chosen in a moment of spontaneity. 1 She regularly employs slick and reflective materials, such as resin, and paints on the reverse of transparent materials, which echo the artificial nature of digital imagery and the mediation of screens. Beyond colour, Ratna Wulan experiments with the limits of painterly abstraction as her works become sculptural, manifesting in a plethora of geometries and materials, and revealing constant experimentation in structure and texture. She creates shaped canvases with raised surfaces and modular forms; incorporates lacquer, plexiglass and steel; and has created paintings that combine kinetic movement. She works on custom-made canvases and frames, and fastidiously controls the palette, working with producers to mix unique colour combinations rather than sourcing commercially available colours. ‘Halo’ 2021, Ratna Wulan’s most recent series, included in APT10, emerged through exploration of geometries and how artificial colour can emulate the physical and mathematical phenomena that produce light and colour in nature, such as rainbows. 2 Works from ‘Halo’ are based on these optical phenomena, such as the parhelion (or sun dog), caused by ice in the atmosphere that produces bright spots on either side of the sun; the rare anthelion, which produces a luminous spot from the sun on the opposite side of the parhelic circle in the sky; and a similar effect produced by the moon, known as a paraselene. Using cast resin, lacquer paint, wood, plastics, acrylic sheets and pigments, these phenomena manifest across a range of structures. The series also explores a new method: hundreds of modular prism shapes amass to build an overall colour gradation, while each small prism creates additional angled surfaces, so the spectrum shifts through different viewpoints across the sculptural surface. As in previous works, synthetic materials, hard edges and polished surfaces are delicately balanced by soft minimalist palettes and subtle, faded shifts in tone. Similarly, Ratna Wulan is able to poise the determined precision of mathematics and science with the alluring, fleeting sensations of natural colour phenomena. Tarun Nagesh Endnotes 1 Agung Hujatnikajennong, ‘Chromatic spectres’, in Spectral Fiction [exhibition catalogue], ROH Projects, Jakarta, 2016, p.6. 2 Syagini Ratna Wulan, artist statement emailed to the author, June 2021. Syagini Ratna Wulan Born 1979, Bandung, Indonesia Lives and works in Bandung