Soni Irawan

About the work

Inspired by the fighting spirit of sellers of goods and services on the sidewalk of the streets in the city of Jogja. I have great admiration towards their forthright candor and naivete, as they never thought about the standard of advertising design. Solely with the enthusiasm to fight for a living, they made placards to advertise the products they made. The meeting of great enthusiasm for making a living and low advertising skills, produces unexpected folk art compositions: so pure, raw, and honest. An art brut at its best. I got all the plaques from bartering through sellers on the street; some asked for new plaques to be replaced, some asked to buy them straight away, and there were many who didn’t want to give me their plaques with many reasons — mostly historical reasons. By making a composition from hundreds of plaques that I collected with a fairly large size of 3×16, I wanted the audience to feel the the enormous enthusiasm for ‘fighting for life’ — transmitting the aura of the streets of Jogja to the exhibition venue. Inspired by the fighting spirit of sellers of goods and services on the sidewalk of the streets in the city of Jogja. I have great admiration towards their forthright candor and naivete, as they never thought about the standard of advertising design. Solely with the enthusiasm to fight for a living, they made placards to advertise the products they made. The meeting of great enthusiasm for making a living and low advertising skills, produces unexpected folk art compositions: so pure, raw, and honest. An art brut at its best. I got all the plaques from bartering through sellers on the street; some asked for new plaques to be replaced, some asked to buy them straight away, and there were many who didn’t want to give me their plaques with many reasons — mostly historical reasons. By making a composition from hundreds of plaques that I collected with a fairly large size of 3×16, I wanted the audience to feel the the enormous enthusiasm for ‘fighting for life’ — transmitting the aura of the streets of Jogja to the exhibition venue.

image credits to the artist

About the artist

Soni Irawan is an artist and musician (guitarist) who founded the band seek six sick (1999), one of the pioneer noise rock bands in Indonesia. Has made 4 studio albums, 2 live albums, 1 collaboration EP. Apart from painting on canvas, his visual works also include installation, three-dimensional and printmaking works. His educational background in printmaking during college greatly influenced his creative process Before painting on canvas, Soni is more comfortable making murals on street walls because he feels carefree and can be freer to work in large sizes and everyone can more easily access his work. Beside his educational background in printmaking and his experience of making murals on the street when he was young, the biggest influence in his work is the music he plays, noise rock, sometimes it’s full of spontaneous jam sessions, it’s like planning the unplanned. Painting is like playing the guitar in his band and seeing the canvas as a street wall.