Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo

kohesi Initiatives is pleased to present Terra Nova: Bentang Lain (Other Scapes), Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo’s first solo exhibition in Yogyakarta, and his debut solo presentation with the gallery.

Long recognized for his experiments with resin and pigments derived from diverse alternative materials, how Arin Sunaryo paints capture how the thing came to be. His pigmented resin paintings are made with pigments derived from unusual materials. Many real objects are ground and brought together to fill the suspension of colours and spectrum of his paintings: palm oil fruits from Kalimantan, volcanic ash from Mount Merapi, mud from Porong, soil from the city of Nusantara, and coal soot.

Each pigments with its parallel stories which touches and valuates, preserving matters that are quotidian to the populist or tragic. Arin Sunaryo's pigments possess their material eternity in their own unique instances. In this exhibition, paintings are not merely visual objects. Arin's works do not refer to a single moment or scene. In his works, Arin presents the energy and vitality of the materials used, capturing movement and presenting the terrestrial order that forms the basis of truth.

In the title Terra Nova: Bentang Lain,  Arin Sunaryo’s works both create new grounds, new territories, and of new earth, wholly other scapes—terra nova, as man's vision on time and space. Arin Sunaryo's paintings are terrains where memories land. They radiate natura naturans—nature expressed naturally—but not merely physical or imaginative representations. These paintings become a reinhabited terrain, bringing together the present, the past, and the future in a single, unified landscape. Space and time merge, making each work a field of experiences which can never be fully interpreted.

This exhibition features more than 20 works combining various types of resin painting mediums and installations. In Terra Nova: Bentang Lain, all of Arin's works, in various materials he used, are essentially paintings. These works transcend their material boundaries, radiating imagination as a transfiguration of the visible, opening up new layers in our visual experiences.