Reinventing Eve: A group exhibition of all-female artists

Indonesian Luxury is proud to present Reinventing Eve, a group exhibition of all-female artists at the Function Hall of 1Park Avenue, opening on 13 March and running until 17 March. A reception will be held on the opening day, preceded by an art talk with Carla Bianpoen and a press preview. The exhibition is presented by PT Intiland Development (1Park Avenue) and curated by ISA Art Advisory, a member of Indonesian Luxury. 

Indonesian Luxury is very pleased to have partnered with 1Park Avenue, a newly launched luxury apartment designed by the award winning Tom Elliot of PAI Architects, and PT. Intiland Development as a continuation of our mission to encourage art in public and private spaces and establish the connecting bridges for art and design. After 5 years, ISA Art Advisory is expanding its brand to a new gallery space and its reach to focus on women artists and new media artists.  

Reinventing Eve honors Raden Ajeng Kartini, a prominent national heroine from Java. Known as one of the pioneers for women’s rights and an advocate for promoting education for girls, Kartini has since become a symbol of feminism and freedom amongst all women in modern and contemporary Indonesia. ”Reinventing Eve is a special exhibition that showcases carefully curated artworks by fourteen inspirational and talented women in celebration of Kartini Day” as stated by Deborah C Iskandar, the founder of Indonesian Luxury. 

For centuries, women were systematically excluded due to a number of factors: art forms like textiles and other decorative arts were often dismissed as crafts and not considered as fine art. Many women were kept from pursuing a general education, let alone arts training. Moreover, the men who dominated the discipline often wrongly believed women to be inferior artists. Artist and instructor Hans Hoffmann’s comment to the influential abstract expressionist painter Lee Krasner in the mid-20th century says it all: “This is so good you wouldn’t know it was done by a woman.” 

The impact of feminism saw a rise in the 19th and 20th centuries, when the social shift resulted in a new generation of artists such as the iconic Eileen Agar and Louise Bourgeois, who started exploring the themes of mind and body through surrealism. Deborah also added, “Our mission is to make art accessible to everyone. These can be in different mediums including photography, painting, sculptures and experiences.  With events such as this exhibition, we hope to showcase our artworks that are uniquely available in Indonesia to the growing pool of art enthusiasts and collectors in the region.” 

The exhibition Reinventing Eve, is a continuation of this ongoing movement, including the works of eight Indonesian artists: Arahmaiani, Melati Suryodharmo, Sinta Tantra, Ines Katamso, Rega Ayundya, Natisa Jones, Ella Wijt and Inge Kotjo. The six international artists include: Marisa R Ng (Malaysia), Mary Lou Pavlovic (Australia) Lindy Lee (Australia), Sally Smart (Australia), Mella Jaarsma (The Netherlands) and Melissa Tan (Singapore). 

The question still remains, how to enable an environment where women can truly express their creativity on an equal level? Simply because of their gender, women are facing challenges when selling their works and trying to gain recognition. By focusing on art created by women, we want to support the feminist movement and bring more diverse voices into the art world.  

Hosts:  Amalya Hasibuan , Andini Effendi , Winda Malika Siregar, Yuni jie 

Art Talks:  

“The Future has Arrived” with Carla Bianpoen, 13 March at 10 am 

“Art: Through the Public and Private Eye” with Mari Pangestu and Deborah Iskandar, 16 March at 2 pm 

About Indonesian Luxury 

IndonesianLuxury.com offers the most comprehensive online resource for everything you need for acquiring, building or styling your home in Indonesia. Indonesian Luxury is the complete 360-degree solution for art and design, providing a curated listing of the most interesting Indonesian galleries, interior designers, architects, luxury furnishings and real estate. 

About ISA Art Advisory 

ISA Art Advisory is a Jakarta-based art consultancy offering a full range of services for corporate and individual clients. The objective is to increase public awareness and highlight the benefits of bringing art out of museums and galleries into public spaces. ISA Art Advisory provides art consultation services from strategy and planning, to procurement, installation and insurance. With expertise in both international and Southeast Asian art, and a passion for Indonesian modern and contemporary art, ISA assists clients in starting or developing their collections and incorporating art in all aspects of their life, whether at home or in the office. 

About 1Park 

1Park Avenue is a luxury apartment, property of PT Intiland Development that opened in 2012. It is located at the heart of South Jakarta, 1Park Avenue Suites & Penthouses is more than just a premium living space: natural atmosphere lifestyle home with Zen inspired design. The Hamilton is a fully furnished apartment designed by the award winning Tom Elliot of PAI Architects.  

About PT Intiland Development 

Intiland is a leading property developer in Indonesia with more than 45 years of experience. Listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange since 1991, Intiland has been known as an innovator and trendsetter in the Indonesian property industry. Within a few years, Intiland has developed buildings that quickly became national landmarks: the Paul Rudolph-designed Intiland Towers in Jakarta and Surabaya, and The Regatta, a luxury beachfront development in Pluit, North Jakarta designed by Tom Wright (designer of Burj Al Arab). Graha Family, a main residential development in Surabaya, has become one of the most prestigious residential areas. Intiland currently has a diverse portfolio of property products, including residential areas, office buildings, apartments, building management, industrial areas, and management of sports and golf facilities. In addition to successfully building a number of prestigious projects, Intiland is also proactive in industrial development and social commitment efforts. The Company is one of the corporate founders of the Green Building Council Indonesia, and also responsible for Intiland Teduh, a program to help people with low-income to own decent homes. Intiland has become a leading lifestyle property developer. 

About the Artists 

Arahmaiani 

One of Indonesia’s most seminal and respected contemporary artists, Arahmaiani has long been internationally recognized for her powerful and provocative commentaries on social, political, and cultural issues. Born in 1961 in Bandung, Indonesia, she established herself in the 1980s as a pioneer in the field of performance art in Southeast Asia, although her practice also incorporates a wide variety of media. For the past six years, a particular focus of her work has been environmental issues in the Tibetan plateau region, where she has been actively collaborating on-site with Buddhist monks and villagers to foster greater environmental consciousness through an array of ongoing community projects. Shadow of the Past (2016) at Tyler Rollins Fine Art marked the first solo exhibition devoted to her artworks inspired by her ongoing experiences in Tibet, and featured a new installation and video works alongside a series of paintings. The exhibition explored themes of spirituality (particularly informed by Tibetan Buddhism), cultural syncretism, humanity’s interconnectedness with nature, and the place of the feminine in religious traditions and in spiritual life in general. Arahmaiani is fascinated by the buried past of her native Java, its rich Hindu-Buddhist cultural heritage – which is now often under-recognized – and the monumental temples that were overgrown for centuries until their rediscovery in more recent times. Indonesia once had vital centers of Buddhist learning that were sought out by students from across Asia, including Atisha (982–1054), who became one of Tibet’s most revered lamas. Tibet has become an important part of Arahmaini’s own spiritual journey, both as a woman and a Javanese Muslim.  

Ella Wijt 

Born in Jakarta in 1990, Ella Wijt began early and started making art in 1993 and actively exhibited her works in public shows in 2005. She had solo shows in both 2007 and 2008 at the Indonesian National Museum. Ella pursued her Artistic career and left Indonesia after being offered a scholarship from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in Singapore where she began to hone her fine arts skills. From here she chose to focus her attention on painting and moved to the United States to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where she was awarded a Distinguished Merit Scholarship. Working with her advisors in the Advanced Painting Studios, Wijt was able to broaden her work to encompass a variety of media, concepts and intentions. She describes that her work embodies "faith and womanhood because they are the medium through which i pray." Wijt graduated from SAIC in 2015 with the Edward L Ryerson Fellowship Award and continued her work in Chicago until returning to work in her home in Jakarta in 2017.  

Ines Katamso 

Ines Katamso (b.1990), born in Yogyakarta describes herself as “anak-campur” or a kid of mixed-nationality. Her father, an Indonesian musician, her mother, a French tattoo artist, Ines spent the first ten years of her life in Yogyakarta, before moving to France where she received her education in art and fashion design. Shortly after graduation Ines then returned to her homeland in order to develop her ever-expanding creative practice first as a muralist followed by the creation of her own Interior design studio, Atelier Ines-K. Starting painting on canvas was a natural process of self-criticism. 
Speaking with Ines about her decision to move from large wall to intimate scale, she explains in a beautiful French accent, that she is now able to explore externally, a type of internal space related to how her own mind transforms distress and anxiety, her process of somatization. Each canvas, comprised of geometric shapes, lines, and organic forms, while at first glance whimsical, express a much deeper internal process of self-reflection and discovery. 

Inge Rijanto Kotjo 

Born in Semarang, Central Java in 1949, Inge Rijanto is a sculpture artist who first started pursuing fashion design at the Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunste. However, during her peak career in fashion, Inge decided to change paths and chase her lifetime dream of becoming an artist. She started out with painting on canvases using oil and acrylic whilst also evolving into sculpting figures out of bronze and fiberglass. Her distinctive figurative sculptures lead her to become one of Indonesia's first ever Sculptors to participate in the 26th Le Salon D'Autumn International De Luneville, France in 2011 and 2012. Her works are believed to be a product of the Fashion design foundation that she has from drawing two and three-dimensional human figures that she brings to life in her sculptures. Through observation on ordinary people going about their daily life, Inge Rijanto draws upon actions including, body movements, face expressions, language (behaviour) and etc. Her figurative sculptures transform trivialities of everyday life into iconographic material, magnifying human attitudes. 

Lindy Lee 

Lindy Lee is an Australian artist (born Brisbane 1954). Lee’s practice explores her Chinese ancestry through Taoism and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism – philosophies that see humanity and nature as inextricably linked. Symbolic gestures and processes that call on the element of chance are often used to produce a galaxy of images that embody the intimate connections between human existence and the cosmos. Lee’s works are intentionally slow to impart their secrets. Rather than singular visual statements, they are thoughtful objects where meaning emerges from sustained meditation.  

 Investigating and questioning multiplicity of self has remained a central concern in Lee’s practice. From her early works that referenced the Western canon of portraiture and questioned the notion of authenticity in artistic practice, to her more recent use of family photos that reflect on the experiences of loss and transition spanning five generations of travel from China to Australia. Lee’s work, as a Chinese-Australian artist, has been crucial to visualizing the experience of Chinese diaspora in a country that has historically whitewashed its multiculturalism. 

With a practice spanning over three decades, Lindy Lee has a well established reputation in Australia, and widespread international recognition 

Marisa R Ng 

Born in Selangor, Malaysia in 1977, Marisa Ng is a full time artist who earned her Certificate Of Figurative Art from the National Academy of Art, Culture & Heritage, Malaysia. Marisa derives most of her work from the attachment that she felt towards her Ah Ma (grandmother) who suffered from cancer. Having a special connection with her growing up, Marisa describes her fondness of her abstractionist brush stroke as a personification of the way her Ah Ma cooked in the kitchen. 'Spontaneous but purposeful' and likes to get things done quickly. She values her leisure time to the extent that every line, dots and patches of color are poured upon the canvas with the intensity of the brush strokes aligned with the conversations and the emotional significance that she treasures in her heart and memory.  

Marisa knows exactly when a peace is completed as she describes the quote by Robert Henri (1865-1929) 'The stroke which marks the path of a rocket into the sky maybe only a few inches long, but the spirit of the artist has travelled a thousand feet at the moment he made that stroke.' She currently resides in Malaysia and has exhibited her works in a numerous exhibitions throughout the country. 

Mary Lou Pavlovic 

Mary Lou Pavlovic is an Australian artist who lives and works in Bali. She holds an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College London (1996) and a PhD in Visual Art from Monash University of Melbourne. (2015).  Throughout her career, she has undertaken a number of residencies including the Tate Tokyo Residence (private) with a resulting solo exhibition at the Australian Embassy Tokyo, exhibited at Art Cologne, Melbourne Art Fair, the Edinburgh Festival and in the Internationale Photoszene, Cologne. More recently, Pavlovic's flower sculptures were featured in 'Australian Artists and Bali, 1930s to Now' at McClelland Gallery Victoria, (2015). In 2018, she was awarded an Apexart New York International Franchise exhibition to curate and exhibit in an exhibition in Bali, titled 'Dipping in the Kool-Aid' held at Tonyraka gallery.  In 2018 Pavlovic also staged the solo work,  'Walking in Bali' at Tonyraka, which traveled to the Four Seasons Hotel, Ubud, Bali. 

Melati Suryodarmo 

Melati Suryodarmo was born in Surakarta, Central Java, 1969. After graduating at the Padjajaran University in Social Political Sciences. Melati went and pursued her art education in performance art at the Braunschweig School of Art in Braunschweig, Germany. During this time she worked for and got mentored by Marina Abramovic and later on performed alongside her with a group of students at the 2003 Venice Biennale. Melati's art is constructed from the world inside her body. For her the body functions as a container of memories and living organisms. The process of producing her artwork is a lifelong exploration that never stops to put her self inside a metamorphic constellation. She perceives her surroundings as the fact of the real presence of the now whilst still considering the path of its history. She tries to understand the languages that are not spoken which open the door of perceptions. "I aim to create a concentrated level of intensity without the use of narrative structures. Talking about politics, Society or Psychology makes no sense to me if the nerves are not able to digest the information. I love it when my performance reaches a level of factual absurdity." 

Melissa Tan 

Melissa Tan (b. 1989, Singapore) is a visual artist based in Singapore and received her BA (Fine Arts) from Lasalle College of the Arts in 2011. Her works are based on nature, themes of transience and beauty of the ephemeral. Her recent projects revolve around landscapes and the process of formation. Interested in geography and textures of rocks, she explores to translate the visual language through different mediums. Employing processes such as paper cutting, painting and silk-screen techniques, she is interested in materiality and how the medium supports the work. Though trained as a painter, she also works with video, sound and objects.  She was included in The Singapore Show: Future Proof, Singapore Art Museum at 8Q in 2012 and An Atlas of Mirrors, Singapore Biennale 2016, Singapore in 2016. She also participated in the National Art Council and Dena Foundation Artist Residency program (Paris, France) in 2013. 

Mella Jaarsma 

Mella Jaarsma is a Dutch artist who has become known for her complex custom installations and her focus on forms of cultural and racial diversity embedded within clothing, the body and food. She was born in the Netherlands in 1960 and studied visual art at Minerva Academy in Groningen (1978-1984), after which she left the Netherlands to study at the Art Institute of Jakarta (1984) and at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta (1985-1986). She has lived and worked in Indonesia ever since. In 1988, she co-founded Cemeti Art House (With Nindityo Adipurnomo), the first space for contemporary art in Indonesia, which to this day remains an important platform for young artists and art workers in the country and region.  

Mella Jaarsma's works have been presented widely in exhibitions and art events in Indonesia and abroad. 

Natisa Jones 

Born in Jakarta, Natisa Jones is a painter currently sharing her time between Bali, Indonesia and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her focus has always been in the field of fine art and she completed her visual art studies in Chiang Mai in Thailand, before obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts Painting at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Her works explore themes regarding identity, inquiring into the human condition through the concept of ‘process'. 
Through the method of documentation and experimentation, Jones' practice has become a platform where she can confront her own inner dialogue: “Drawing, painting, writing or whatever the medium is, has always been my way of documenting the things around me and my way of attempting to understand things better by processing it through creating. It's a space and outlet where I can say something how ever I want in whatever form I choose and I can't be wrong. I can be disliked, but not wrong.” 
Jones draws a parallel between the human experience and the creative process, a relationship, which for her informs one another. Often incorporating text into image, she pulls narratives from daily life, exploring issues within identity and reflecting on ideas of the 'self '. “Making and creating has been part of my being since I was two years old. It is my way of understanding and genuinely reflecting. The idea of supporting oneself with something that you naturally need for self-development is a very weird concept to me”, she explains. 
She has participated ingroup and solo exhibitions in various cities including Bali, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Melbourne and Berlin. Her pieces range from small prints and works on paper to large-scale canvases. She uses mixed media such as collage, ink, graphite and acrylic paint. 

Rega Ayundya 

Rega Ayundya Putri was born in Surabaya, Indonesia in 1988. She earned an undergraduate and postgraduate degree in Sculpture Arts in 2012 and 2014 respectively from the Intitute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia. Although formally educated as a sculptor, drawing has always been her safe haven. 

Rega considers her art style to be surrealist, as she draws inspiration from her subconscious at random times, such as when she is daydreaming, bored at work, or alone before sleep. Her works portray random and straightforward message. She often uses metaphors to express things which she finds hard to explain. She thinks that a good artwork ought to be able to make the audience feel what the artist feels when he/she makes the artwork. Most of the time, she makes art when she feels sad, thus that is the feeling she wants to transfer to her audience. 

Rega has a lot of influences, but her favourite is Gustav Klimt. She is also inspired by many women artists, such as Frida Kahlo, Jenny Saville, Shazia Sikander, dan Tracey Emin, whose views on life she finds intriguing. For illustration, she enjoys the works of Makoto Aida, Junji Ito, dan Takato Yamamoto. Rega’s works have been exhibited Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Bandung, Malang, dan Surabaya. 

She was also a finalist from Soemardja Art Award 2012 and Anugerah Musik Indonesia’s Best Album Artwork. 

Sally Smart 

Sally Smart (b. 1960) is one of Australia’s significant contemporary artists, represented in leading collections and exhibiting consistently since 1998 in Australia and internationally. Working with collage, large-scale assemblage installations and increasingly, performance and video, her practice engages identity politics, ideas relating to the body, the home and history. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, Smart is currently a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne, she received an Australia Council Fellowship (2014) and was Sackler Fellow Artist-in Residence, University of Connecticut, USA (2012). A major public art commission, Shadow Trees was installed in Melbourne, Australia (2014). Smart’s most recent work includes artisan embroideries as assemblage elements in her project The Choreography of Cutting, which re-imagines and re-frames the historical avant-garde’s experimental performance and theatre design, and most recently centered on the work of the Ballets Russes. She currently works between Melbourne, Australia and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 

Sinta Tantra 

A British artist of Balinese descent, Sinta Tantra was born in New York in 1979. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London 1999–2003 and at the Royal Academy Schools in London 2004–2006. 

Drawing strongly upon a vibrant palette influenced by her Balinese heritage, Sinta Tantra began her career producing pieces composed of intricately cut vinyl and painted designs. Reflection, symmetry and exotic motifs were common in her public artworks. 

Highly regarded for her site-specific murals and installations in the public realm, most of her work envisions the concept of drawing and color. While color encourages us to become immersed into a world of otherness, drawing explores the slippage between the two and three dimensions – the clarity of line, its distortion, push and pull. The paintings examine the activity of drawing itself, physically linking the disciplines of painting together with architecture on a single canvas plane. Colored motifs stand, collapse, float – pictorial spaces move towards and away from the viewer. Tantra asks the question, can painting become architecture? Can architecture become a painting? 

Musicality, rhythm and colors, dichotomies of masculine and feminine, direction and scale define Tantra’s abstractions. For Tantra, there is no question that “art feeds our minds, our souls and affirms identity. To support the arts is to support the very essence of what makes us human.” 

Tantra is represented by Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in London and by ISA Art Advisory in Jakarta.  

For further information, please contact: 

Indonesian Luxury 

Shesira Said 

Tel: +62 21 723 39 05 

Email: info@indonesianluxury.com