Projects 2012-2021 > The Present Future is Written in the Past (2012)

The drawings in this series borrow imagery from Indonesian textiles (in particular batik cloths from Java), Western-European wallpaper and fabric patterns, and renaissance engravings and woodcuts. Combined with hand-silkscreened ben-day dots, these pictures construct environments that may seem to be simultaneously mythological and contemporary, referring as much to comic book illustration and science fictions as to traditional folk tales. Liminal beings populate these scenes -- Centauride-wayangs; human-like creatures with babi-rusa (pig-deer) or rhinoceros heads; bird-dragons and dragon-fish – alien creatures, disconnected and floating in ambiguous spaces. I am interested in printed pictures – both on paper and on cloth – and in how the popularity of particular patterns and images that circulate at a given time reflects narratives of colonialism, conquest, cultural appropriation and hybridity.

An Ordinary Day has Arisen
Ink and gouache on paper
31" x 48"
2012
detail, An Ordinary Day Has Arisen
Ink and gouache on paper
31" x 48"
2012
Wonder Wayang
Ink, gouache, and silkscreen collage on paper
2012
detail, Wonder Wayang
Ink, gouache, and collage on paper
30" x 22"
2012
Garuda Phoenix St. James
Ink, gouache, and silkscreen collage on paper
30" x 22"
2012
detail, Garuda Phoenix St. James
Ink, gouache and collage on paper
30" x 22"
2012
Speak of Our Own Breath
Ink, gouache, and silkscreen collage on paper
22" x 30"
2012
When?
Ink, gouache, and silkscreen collage on paper
31" x 48"
2012
detail, When?
Ink, gouache, and silkscreen collage on paper
31"x 48"
2012
They Began To Feel Slightly Uneasy
Ink, gouache, and silkscreen collage on paper
31" x 48"
2012
detail, They Began to Feel Slightly Uneasy
Ink, gouache and collage on paper
31" x 48"
2012
detail, They Began to Feel Slightly Uneasy
Ink, gouache and collage on paper
31" x 48"
2012
Near and Far
Ink and silkscreen collage on paper
31" x 48"
2012
detail, Near and Far
Ink and collage on paper
31" x 48"
2012