Born in Jakarta, 1960

He was the first Indonesian artist to break into the global art scene during the early 1990s. Starting his career in the 80s, Heri Dono is well-known for contemporary installation works, many of which were inspired by the Javanese shadow puppets (wayang). He tried to comprise a number of complex elements from wayang performances: visual arts, music, storytelling, social criticism, humor, and myths of life philosophy. These components are merged into the performance's narrative to give a generic interpretation to which multimedia elements are added. The traditional art performance inspires Heri Dono's interest in revitalizing the arts that are deeply rooted in Indonesian traditions. In many of his three-dimensional installation artworks and performances, Heri Dono effectively makes use of 'performativity' so that the works are involved in complimentary dialogs with their audience. In his paintings, Heri Dono makes the most use of wild deformations and freestyle fantasies out of which emerge characters from the wayang stories. To this, he adds his profound knowledge and interest in children's cartoons, animated films, and comics.