Artist Profile: Nurrachmat Widyasena (Ito)
Arts, Design & Photography \5.0 – IND
January 2022
Mixed Media
Nurrachmat Widyasena, or Ito as he is fondly known, lives and works in Bandung. As an artist, Ito has exhibited his works in various parts of the world, including Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and England. Beside spending his days as an artist, he is the director and founder of a geeky/cheeky clothing line brand name KITC.
His works explore notions around retro-futurism art, where he tries to stand in the crossroad of reality and fantasy. Using paintings, metal plates, pipes, wood, and found objects, he reconstructed his artworks with a simple and unsophisticated technical approach. Even though he talks about futuristic things, by using a low-tech method instead his works become a critical representation of Indonesia’s technological achievements.
Responding to the theme of “Future of Indonesia” for the commissioned work for The Gaia Hotel Bandung, Ito’s painting and artifact installation present Indonesia’s evolution and future potential in technology. With 14 panels covering sector of tourism, transportation, human resources, the relation between humans and technology, farming, agriculture, and personalization industry, he visualizes how technology and human could be integrated and work together to bring Indonesia forward, in his signature whimsical style.
By overlapping signs metaphorically, Ito hopes this work can be a subconscious trigger for the spirit of the importance of technology for Indonesia's future.