The "DARK SAYINGS"of Krisna Widiathama by Rain Rosidi, 2010
Long life of Disorderly, the works of Krisna Widiathama
Dark Sayings is a term used in describing some verses in the Bible that entail allegorical interpretation. It is also frequently associated with the ancient wisdom believed as had been existed before the holy books revealed. In this exhibition, the works of Krisna oftentimes apply popular symbols, yet, not in conventional ways, which also includes familiar religious symbols. Thematically, Krisna's works are trully 'dark'; block up with odd imageries of violence, sex, religion, and death. Figures depicted--whether derived from popular images or publicly known symbols--are mutated.
Krisna himself admitted his intense feeling of the extremes; of the taboos in society. Krisna's passion is what would be considered as few and far between the society's norms. Classic horror movies and comics, as well as gore and underground kinds are his biggest influences. Gore is a genre exposing violence and sadism verbally through images of wound, blood, mutilation, and other forms of torture including hard-core sexual acts, for instance sadomasochism. Krisna wanders through those freaky expressions using his favorite comics and movies collection.
Other form of expression utilized as the manifestation of what Krisna is committed to is through various kinds of music that are not less bizarre. Down tune metal, drone, ambient, depressive black metal, post metal, old-school death rock/goth, horror punk, noise--those are the idioms used in describing the music genres. Next to that were his hive of activity in several music projects with, for instance, Sodadosa (a solo project of experimental ambient doom noise), Black Ribbon (experimental abrasive punk), Feces Anatomy (a solo project of anti-music harsh noise wall), Liwoth (black noise/experimental doom in collaboration with Ican from Cangkang Serigala), The Spectacular (noise punk project with Wok the Rock, Hahan, Iyok, and Dolly). Through those, Krisna collaborated with some local and international artists, released several records started from 2004 until now. In addition to managing cutting edge/experimental music events with some musicians and artists friends, he also made a special DIY labels specialized in releasing noise and experimental music called Kiamat (doomsday) Kult.
KRISNA'S WAY OF VISUALIZING
Within Yogya art scene, unlike other visual artists, Krisna takes part in a group of youth demonstrating distinct style of visualization. They delve into ideas and visual forms from contrastive sphere. Rather than grounding their visual expansion in contemporary art development, they explore 'popular' or underground arts; comics, popular cartoons, illustrations, tattoos, skate arts, and so on. Currently, the group has become one of the most attention-grabbing tendencies amid Indonesian art activities.
As for Krisna, the development is somehow insufficient to nurture his anti-establishment attitude. He chose to persist in the forms of art that scrutinize skills; in painting or drawing. The techniques developed by youngsters who mostly, according to him, undervalue skills were not convincing enough for him to work on the themes he is instilled in. On that account, his highly skilled works came forth from classic techniques of drawing and woodcuts that require high accuracy. Krisna revealed also his passion in traditional and pop culture arts such as kitsch. His works partially adopted those art forms.
His interest in traditional and classic arts has enabled Krisna in shifting full-frontal violence scenes in his works into a form of complex visual style. In that way, explicitness of the violence were diverted toward the up-to-date visual technique and ornamentation.
Krisna extracted the figures out of the realm of his fantasy; influenced by published chimerical images, within both in vogue and underground scenes. Fantasy, in his works, played the role of the dominatrix. Through this approach, freely he created his own world.
THEMES OF THE WORKS
Krisna has engendered instability within motley of human manifestations—rites, beliefs, sex and violence. The twisted frames he created were the embodiment of chaos. Disorder is eternal. It was the anti-establishment that he exploited in order to tremble the whole normative concepts of mankind entities. Mutated monsters, discharge of blood, cross of bones, skulls, coffins, etc are swarming in Krisna's works.
The violent themes presented were affected by popular imageries of Krisna's top pick musics and fantasies. Resep yang Salah untuk Menciptakan Anak Teladan / Failed Recipe for Making Good Girls was derived from Power Puff Girl cartoon; it was about a professor who invented formulas to create nice kids. Alas, as depicted in the painting, what happened was the reverse. Instead of nice ones, the formula generated black metal-head creepy little mutants.
One of the works entitled Entertained by Death is deeply influenced by his taste of music. It is done in wood cut, but he does not put the printed result on show, instead he showcases the carved wood. He treats the cut piece of wood—usually it is part of the graphic art creation process— as the whole finished work without the printing. The work tells a story about death, which is always accused as terrifying, tragic, fearsome, but at the same time entertaining for this mutant boy; dying from getting his limb slashed. The walking dead plays a guitar with Sunn ((O)) amplifier, and kvlt (cult) status; it is the gadget setting for many noise artists/musicians. An ambient/drone metal band from Seattle was also named after it. In the work, the Sunn ((O)) amp firmly defined the music; which is likely not entertaining for public's ears.
Normative values in society are merged with furthest point of what human is capable of doing; through the symbols of death and violence. Hence, Krisna took us in an excursion to the world filled with magic; bizarre, loud, terrifying, yet sensual.
SEXUALITY IN KRISNA'S WORKS
Sexuality is fairly dominant in Krisna's works, he even collide it with themes that criticize religiosity. For instance in Orgasmic Transcendent to Golgotha that illustrates a state of trance as a result of excessive faith toward one's god/religion. He described it through a painting of a mutant enduring a prayer until it reached orgasm while strangling an angel with three crosses stabbed on the head. The scene brings to mind the allegory of Golgotha as the hill of salvation.
Abnormal sensuality is depicted in a sculptural work Hunger Oh Hunger. Describing lust, the object was derived from Krisna's painting; a nude female baby, with her sensual body shape colored in soft pink. Her seducing stare looks wild and hungry. The idea was from his personal view of a pedophile religious figure.
Scat Love Among Us portraying deviant sex activity. A beautiful lady in cartoonish figure is performing sexual moves using excrement. It was inspired by the term "what's on the outside doesn't reflect what's on the inside"; a pretty lady turned out to be suffering from Scat Fetish (a paraphilia in which sexual arousal or activity is linked to feces).
All of those savagery, violence, and discomfort have been well-managed by Krisna through his imaging style. He definitely enjoys a working process of high-concentration and perseverance. His fast-paced imagination took us for a ride, to unveil the 'dark' side of humanity.
Rain Rosidi
Dark Sayings is a term used in describing some verses in the Bible that entail allegorical interpretation. It is also frequently associated with the ancient wisdom believed as had been existed before the holy books revealed. In this exhibition, the works of Krisna oftentimes apply popular symbols, yet, not in conventional ways, which also includes familiar religious symbols. Thematically, Krisna's works are trully 'dark'; block up with odd imageries of violence, sex, religion, and death. Figures depicted--whether derived from popular images or publicly known symbols--are mutated.
Krisna himself admitted his intense feeling of the extremes; of the taboos in society. Krisna's passion is what would be considered as few and far between the society's norms. Classic horror movies and comics, as well as gore and underground kinds are his biggest influences. Gore is a genre exposing violence and sadism verbally through images of wound, blood, mutilation, and other forms of torture including hard-core sexual acts, for instance sadomasochism. Krisna wanders through those freaky expressions using his favorite comics and movies collection.
Other form of expression utilized as the manifestation of what Krisna is committed to is through various kinds of music that are not less bizarre. Down tune metal, drone, ambient, depressive black metal, post metal, old-school death rock/goth, horror punk, noise--those are the idioms used in describing the music genres. Next to that were his hive of activity in several music projects with, for instance, Sodadosa (a solo project of experimental ambient doom noise), Black Ribbon (experimental abrasive punk), Feces Anatomy (a solo project of anti-music harsh noise wall), Liwoth (black noise/experimental doom in collaboration with Ican from Cangkang Serigala), The Spectacular (noise punk project with Wok the Rock, Hahan, Iyok, and Dolly). Through those, Krisna collaborated with some local and international artists, released several records started from 2004 until now. In addition to managing cutting edge/experimental music events with some musicians and artists friends, he also made a special DIY labels specialized in releasing noise and experimental music called Kiamat (doomsday) Kult.
KRISNA'S WAY OF VISUALIZING
Within Yogya art scene, unlike other visual artists, Krisna takes part in a group of youth demonstrating distinct style of visualization. They delve into ideas and visual forms from contrastive sphere. Rather than grounding their visual expansion in contemporary art development, they explore 'popular' or underground arts; comics, popular cartoons, illustrations, tattoos, skate arts, and so on. Currently, the group has become one of the most attention-grabbing tendencies amid Indonesian art activities.
As for Krisna, the development is somehow insufficient to nurture his anti-establishment attitude. He chose to persist in the forms of art that scrutinize skills; in painting or drawing. The techniques developed by youngsters who mostly, according to him, undervalue skills were not convincing enough for him to work on the themes he is instilled in. On that account, his highly skilled works came forth from classic techniques of drawing and woodcuts that require high accuracy. Krisna revealed also his passion in traditional and pop culture arts such as kitsch. His works partially adopted those art forms.
His interest in traditional and classic arts has enabled Krisna in shifting full-frontal violence scenes in his works into a form of complex visual style. In that way, explicitness of the violence were diverted toward the up-to-date visual technique and ornamentation.
Krisna extracted the figures out of the realm of his fantasy; influenced by published chimerical images, within both in vogue and underground scenes. Fantasy, in his works, played the role of the dominatrix. Through this approach, freely he created his own world.
THEMES OF THE WORKS
Krisna has engendered instability within motley of human manifestations—rites, beliefs, sex and violence. The twisted frames he created were the embodiment of chaos. Disorder is eternal. It was the anti-establishment that he exploited in order to tremble the whole normative concepts of mankind entities. Mutated monsters, discharge of blood, cross of bones, skulls, coffins, etc are swarming in Krisna's works.
The violent themes presented were affected by popular imageries of Krisna's top pick musics and fantasies. Resep yang Salah untuk Menciptakan Anak Teladan / Failed Recipe for Making Good Girls was derived from Power Puff Girl cartoon; it was about a professor who invented formulas to create nice kids. Alas, as depicted in the painting, what happened was the reverse. Instead of nice ones, the formula generated black metal-head creepy little mutants.
One of the works entitled Entertained by Death is deeply influenced by his taste of music. It is done in wood cut, but he does not put the printed result on show, instead he showcases the carved wood. He treats the cut piece of wood—usually it is part of the graphic art creation process— as the whole finished work without the printing. The work tells a story about death, which is always accused as terrifying, tragic, fearsome, but at the same time entertaining for this mutant boy; dying from getting his limb slashed. The walking dead plays a guitar with Sunn ((O)) amplifier, and kvlt (cult) status; it is the gadget setting for many noise artists/musicians. An ambient/drone metal band from Seattle was also named after it. In the work, the Sunn ((O)) amp firmly defined the music; which is likely not entertaining for public's ears.
Normative values in society are merged with furthest point of what human is capable of doing; through the symbols of death and violence. Hence, Krisna took us in an excursion to the world filled with magic; bizarre, loud, terrifying, yet sensual.
SEXUALITY IN KRISNA'S WORKS
Sexuality is fairly dominant in Krisna's works, he even collide it with themes that criticize religiosity. For instance in Orgasmic Transcendent to Golgotha that illustrates a state of trance as a result of excessive faith toward one's god/religion. He described it through a painting of a mutant enduring a prayer until it reached orgasm while strangling an angel with three crosses stabbed on the head. The scene brings to mind the allegory of Golgotha as the hill of salvation.
Abnormal sensuality is depicted in a sculptural work Hunger Oh Hunger. Describing lust, the object was derived from Krisna's painting; a nude female baby, with her sensual body shape colored in soft pink. Her seducing stare looks wild and hungry. The idea was from his personal view of a pedophile religious figure.
Scat Love Among Us portraying deviant sex activity. A beautiful lady in cartoonish figure is performing sexual moves using excrement. It was inspired by the term "what's on the outside doesn't reflect what's on the inside"; a pretty lady turned out to be suffering from Scat Fetish (a paraphilia in which sexual arousal or activity is linked to feces).
All of those savagery, violence, and discomfort have been well-managed by Krisna through his imaging style. He definitely enjoys a working process of high-concentration and perseverance. His fast-paced imagination took us for a ride, to unveil the 'dark' side of humanity.
Rain Rosidi