Eko nugroho biography examples

Yogyakarta-born and based Eko Nugroho is renowned for his trade mark investigations into social constructs and human behaviour under conditions of concealed identity: the faces of people he candidly depicts in his artwork are always completely hidden under elaborate masks, regardless of whether he is working on a painting, a sculpture, an embroidered tapestry, animation or comics.

He draws inspiration to indulge in such concealment from the Indonesian fascination with being masked. And his vivid face masks play a crucial role in defining his social-political commentary on Indonesia’s economic and political reforms in the 1990s that were closely tied to the downfall of Suharto’s tyrannical reign.

His “It’s All About Coalition”, at the Singapore Art Museum, is one such definitive example. In this sculpture of 2 people facing each other, machine parts and unidentifiable objects totally hide their heads. This immediately transforms the 2 figures before us into you, I, the artist Nugroho, every man and the other all at once. And we are all feeling protected and concealed while being detached, isolated or even indifferent as we approach each other for the universal gesture of a hand shake.

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