Darbotz loves Jakarta very much. For him, the traffic jam, the chaos and the hecticness of Jakarta must be faced by him everyday. That which bring out his visual character of his work. The cumi (squid). A character describes his alter ego in facing the hard city.

Darbotz first signature on the street probably his school gang name back in 1997, from walls, buses, and including at the enemy schools area. After more comprehend visual principles during lectures in 2000-2004, Darbotz develop in efforts to create visual characteristics as his own identity, which is shall be recognized without putting his name in the drawing. Unlike graffiti which showing your street name with typography, he explored how to make identity without using any typography. Influenced by hiphop culture with Wu Tang Clan, NWA, A Tribe Called Quest on his tapes he explored and actually able to reconcile himself with the situation of Jakarta urban society which represented by him. Darbotz find alter ego that also reflects the situation of the city that he faces everyday.

He began to make his character on the street in 2004, the character itself always evolve, its like the dynamic of urban society, always evolve. He also one of the founder of Tembokbomber.com, one of the biggest street art and graffiti community in Indonesia. His visualization style is very distinctive and unique. Darbotz solely uses black and white and a bit of accentuation. This is part of strategy that he uses when work on the streets. Black and white becomes the cure of urban festive colors with a variety of advertising products such as billboards, neon box, and city lights. By using simple color, the picture that he made in the wall able to take the attention in the middle of visual density. Besides working on the street, works of darbotz also attract the attention of some big companies to cooperate. Nike, Google chrome and other companies use darbotz’s work to collaborate. Moreover, darbotz also produce clothing and merchandise product with character that he developed. Through this way the darbotz character transformed in various media as the same citizen who spread and become part of urban culture.

That style was also applied on canvas. Darbotz assumes that both patterns that he applies on canvas or on the street are the same. Energy expended, the ideas presented, as well as the techniques applied. But Darbotz admits that there are different challenges in each of them. Canvas has a smaller medium, whitle on the street, according to Darbotz, there is no space limit, not locked, we can smell the sense on the street, pollution, wind, traffic jams, the sound of cars passing by, and the rest is the same. This profile is written by Rain Rosidi

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