Nasirun, the Indonesian artist whose work drew on the iconography of Javanese wayang traditions, has died.
Working primarily in painting, with impasto surfaces and expressive brushstrokes, Nasirun drew on puppetry as a means of contemporary political commentary.
Wayang Multinasional (1999), completed five years after the artist graduated from the Indonesian Art Institute, shows a convention of grotesque characters. With white faces, sharp teeth and monstrously deformed bodies, they find lineage in wayang storytelling, but Nasirun intended the painting to read as a commentary on the political turbulence of Indonesia following the 1997–98 global economic recession.
Nasirun was born in Cilacap, Central Java, to a family of farmers. After studying art, he gained prominence through a series of domestic gallery shows throughout the late 1990s. He went on to exhibit at the 10th Biennale Jogja in 2009, the fourth Singapore Biennale in 2013, and the seventh Beijing International Art Biennale in 2017, where he was part of the Indonesian pavilion.
He also gathered a large collection of Indonesian art, including glass paintings, sketches, drawings, periodicals and other archival materials that championed those he regarded as his historic predecessors, including Umi Dachlan and Emiria Sunassa, and that has proved a valuable resource for research. His own work is held in the collections of National Gallery Singapore and National Gallery of Indonesia.
