Much of humanity’s perpetuance can be attributed to our nature to connect with others. Indeed, it is more advantageous to face a threat or the unknown with a group of individuals rather than to stick with oneself. However, this behavior is not limited to people. We do not only form relations with one another but also attach ourselves to objects, ideas, and concepts. These bonds form meanings and understandings that can help us make sense of the world around us, and as they develop into knowledge, we must accept that the backdraw of our tendency—the habit of forming social bubbles—can lead to knowledge illusion.

If a work of art exists because there is a role of imagination as the result of processing the reality of its creator - the artist -, then Bernandi's work (as Bernandi Desanda is called) is a world of imagination that he produces from the reality that revolves within him. I will start this introductory text with a coherent storytelling style about the visual culture that was started by Bernandi when he was still in junior high school.

Narrating the visual culture experienced by Bernandi will lead to an explanation of the shapes, figures, and symbols in his works. It could be that when you want to understand what Bernandi is describing, you can open yourself up to understanding how Bernandi shaped his career in drawing.

This introductory text will explain a lot about the drawing method chosen by Bernandi. Followed by the story and his alignments as an artist who has his share and relationship with the forms of living things that he describes. In the end, he will explain the works that he creates as an important representation of his presence as part of a human being who experiences a life-inspiring process and an artist.

Meeting  the artists who are showing in Reciprocities has encouraged me to  re-question the aesthetic nature of art. If aesthetics are often  associated with something nice and beautiful, how to categorize the  connection built between the darker-themed works and the audience? For  me, it is not merely a matter of taste. There are basic things that  support such connection.

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In  general, fine arts and aesthetic studies have developed far beyond what  Kantian thinkers have predicted. The modality of art continues to  change: from its attachment to the medium (medium-based specific), to  become dependent on the discussion (discourse-based specific), and now  seems to be largely determined by concrete socio-cultural issues  (context-based specific). The focus of the value also changes. Quoting  from Bambang Sugiharto (2013) –the focus of value on art has changed  from a matter of beauty, to a technical problem, then to a matter of  meaning, and then again to the impact of sensation, and finally, to the  process of mutual significance between the artist, the work, and the  appreciators.

The  search for the meaning of an encounter will very likely be romantic. I  used to wonder if it is possible to discuss an encounter by going beyond  the mere romanticization thereof while preserving the emotions and  beauty within. Will it be possible to perceive an encounter as beautiful  if the two entities meeting each other come from different origins? If  yes, how do we recognize such an encounter not as a mere celebration? It  was the latter that actuated my thought to look beyond the romanticized  feelings brought forward by an encounter.

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To write for this exhibition, I started with finding the meaning of the  word ‘Confluence’, after which this exhibition is named. This is when  the thought sparked. In different online references, confluence is a  term used to describe the coming together of two streams. Said  definition implies that the two streams come from different upstreams,  but they head to a single destination. Therefore, they finally meet  somewhere.

One of the keys to happiness is to accept sadness as part of the realities in life. That being said, this is not an encouragement nor an excuse for us to dwell in our own pessimism and stop every attempt in our pursuit of happiness. Instead, this is a call to cultivate a new mindset in understanding sadness, anger, and disappointments, not as negative emotions that need to be resisted or avoided, but as a moment or opportunity to reflect and understand ourselves.

Nevertheless, for the longest time, sadness and art have been associated as two sides of the same coin, in which depressive episodes have served as inspirations for artists – from poets, musicians, to visual artists – in producing their works. Therefore, it is unsurprising that we may have, inadvertently, perpetuated the myth of the tortured artists, which romanticizes frustrated feelings, chronic fatigue, anxiety, and mental stress as the prerequisites for the creative process. We admire figures like actor Robin Williams, poet Sylvia Plath, and painter Vincent van Gogh as the creative geniuses who produced extraordinary works because of their mental conditions. In recent years, as conversations around mental health become more widespread, we realize just how this mindset is wrong and dangerous. Williams, Plath, and van Gogh were the exceptions – their remarkable achievements in spite of their conditions were not common, and we all know the tragic way their stories ended. Prolonged sadness, depression, and sufferings are not to be normalized and glorified as the price of creative and artistic genius. Research has shown that being at peace and in good health are important factors that help us optimize our creativity and improve our artistic abilities. Then, what about artists who still use sadness as the source of inspiration for their process?

The characters in Addy Debil's works always seem to play with the eye or “mata” in Indonesian, where there are many meanings in this word. The eye or “mata”, which is usually considered a window to a person's soul, can often be seen as the tip of an object such as a knife blade (mata pisau), arrowhead (mata panah), and sword blade (mata pedang). It shows its sharp nature that seems intimidating. But the eyes seen in Addy's work are different. Why is this a street artist and illustrator from Bandung showing so many characters with their eyes closed? Closing their eyes while showing a certain facial expression, a man, a rabbit, a fish, a dinosaur to a cat who shows a similar grinning face in his works.

These characters in my observation show a flat expression. Absurd emotion, nothingness, but smiling happily. It can be said that Addy wanted to convey a message of happiness. But do they truly show a look of happiness? As an artist, Addy feels that he has an obligation to make the audience who sees his work happy, maybe it can be conveyed, and part of his task is represented by the hustle and bustle of his distinctive characters that is closing their eyes. Since the eye is the window of the soul, when we close it, will it be like a closed window, what is in it, or what is felt is no longer visible?

An Opener: A Little Faith in an Uncertain Journey

The  year 2020 saw many surprising things for mankind, ranging from various  natural disasters, political turmoil in various countries, large mass  movements in response to various world issues, to the death of legendary  figures who were influential in the world. Every year, there are always  recurring disasters and new political upheavals. All of these events  seem normal and normal like the previous years, it's just that 2020 is  not covered with the devastating waves of the global COVID-19 pandemic  which affect all aspects of human life.

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Discussion  about the impact and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is a topic of  concern throughout 2020, but apart from that, there are many new and  good things to be done by the community during the pandemic. Both in the  virtual world and in the real world, kindness continues to be shared  and broadcasted. Apart from all the suffering humanity has experienced  as a result of the pandemic, it must be admitted that affection,  kindness and solidarity also continue to be seen, read, heard and felt.

Continuing the Line, Forming the Image

“To communicate our ideas and sentiments, we use many kinds of languages. The visual arts constitute one of those languages.” Art as Image and Idea, Edmund Burke Fieldman.

Continuing the Line! That is Abenk Alter's process in forming a drawing.1 Abenk starts a drawing by creating a line from one point to the next until it forms a surface, space, and shape. Abenk did it with the fastline method, by simply following the movement and control of his hand, continuing what was in the drawing.

Since childhood, Abenk loves to draw. His mother often gives him paper, tools such as pencils, pens, markers, and crayons for drawing. He draws something almost every day. This hobby that has been cultivated since childhood makes him familiar with lines and drawings. While he was still making music and often known as a singer/songwriter, Abenk never left his drawings.

When Abenk was working on his university final project in the Visual Communication Design course, Abenk made a book containing lots of drawings. His lecturer at that time encouraged Abenk to pursue his talents in drawing. Then in 2014, Abenk decided to focus on being a visual artist. For the first time, Abenk showed off some of the drawings and illustrations he made at Treehouse Kemang, shortly after he left his band.

That's the story of Abenk's journey with lines and drawings. Until now, the habit of drawing is also carried out with his children. Abenk is very happy to see the honesty that little children have when drawing because it can display the imagination of the child as it is. Like Picasso said that “All children are artists”. Spontaneity is what drives Abenk in the process of exploring his visual characters.

My first encounter with Ummi Shabrina Damas (Ummi's) works on social media challenged my head. Her paintings are full of human figures in a naive style, appearing to be doing various activities between the house and objects in its space. The challenge I felt was the same as when I tried to find Waldo in a storybook from England called Where's Wally by Martin Handford. I was busy looking for easter eggs in her decorative paintings, but at that time I couldn't find them.

That morning I visited Ummi's studio to see her works in person, but I'm no longer looking for easter eggs. The sensation of that challenge immediately turned into an emerging excitement, it was exactly like watching a parade when we were kids. I remember the sensation of being crowded among the other spectators, but I still rejoiced. I also remember how it felt to be carried by my father to get a closer look at the viewer, but my father's feet had to collide with the legs of the hawkers. That is how it feels like, the heat, the crowd, the noise, but still being spoiled by the millions of colors, patterns, and attractions of figures appearing in the spaces created. There are things that feel odd because they have never been felt, but there is happiness that holds the eyes. Seeing Ummi's works makes me want to be in it to unravel the many events and emotions.

“…….
What would art mean,
If it is detached from the suffering of the surrounding.
What would thinking mean,
If it is detached from the matter of life."

- W.S Rendra. Sajak Sebatang Lisong (19 August 1977)

In a scene from Yang Muda Yang Bercinta (1977), a movie directed by Sumanjaya and is starred by W.S. Rendra himself, the poem above was read out in front of students of Institut Teknologi Bandung–two days after the celebration commemorating the Independence Day of Indonesia. It was a precarious situation: the political situation was chaotic, the economic situation was deteriorating, and the people were affected by such circumstances. As we all know, W.S. Rendra used Sajak Sebatas Lisong as a mean to encourage fellow artists to voice out the issues which surround them, and also as a reminder that they should not be afraid of the oppression from the regime which they criticize through their works of art.