Agus Suwage
Bio
Agus Suwage’s (b. 1959) art education background is graphic designing. But later he decided to be a professional artist. He began attracting the attention of Indonesian as well as international art audiences with his works that incorporate the style and character of drawing in the conven- tion of painting. Therefore his works involve various techniques and drawing and painting means including pencil, water color, charcoal instruments among others.
Lately his works have become quite distinct ever since they began of- fering the artist’s self-portraits in different poses and settings that often convey critical messages concerning socio-political issues around him. Agus Suwage doesn’t only make drawings and paintings. He also explores other media combining drawing and multimedia installation. His works show conceptual strong points as he extensively takes an appropriation approach. In his case, appropriation goes for works by other artists as well as his own that he continuously remakes and develops, repeatedly and on multi layers. That way, Agus Suwage’s works also provide for the artist a mean to critically investigate the history of modern art by confronting it with various issues in contemporary contexts.