Last night, The Mill was an artistic powerhouse demonstrating how social media can successfully grace the artistic community, with Yogyakarta to Adelaide summiting modest international talent.
Indonesian artists Ryan Ady Putra and Okta Samid teamed up with Adelaide’s own Jake Holmes using The Mill’s minimalistic gallery to playfully yet poignantly explore the concept of selective Instagram projection.
Only cool screens and signs at the YYK ADL exhibition.
YKK -> ADL curator Hannen Martin aka arts mogul Zombie Queen, told us she found and connected the two Indonesian artists through the ‘gram while Jake naturally found his way through a mutual following on the platform itself.
‘Instagram is just a really cool way for prolific and active artists to make work and take pictures,’ says Hannen. ‘It’s just a way of showing people the work artists are doing and it makes sense. You’re putting it out there not knowing who’s going to see it.’
The exhibition features screen prints, zines and strong acrylics that explore the everyday mundanities of Instagram manifestations from the selfie through to sharpie (yep, the pen) portraiture.
Okta Samid’s undemanding black and white silkscreens say it all as his work pushes the ritualistic theme of ‘a day in the life of the everyday artist’ with a set of embroidered hoops depicting symbols from kitchen mixers to empty bike frames.
Okta’s monochromatic ornaments.
‘I pushed this theme because we came together through Instagram, which I feel is an everyday part of your routine… Okta came up with the hoops to sort of symbolise his life as an artist like eating, relationships and getting ideas together,’ says Hannen.
Ryan Ady Putra also silk-screened but chose to depict blinged-up tigers brandishing pens in ‘Under Pleasure’ to stand adjacent to a macabre smiling ‘Grateful Day’. Putra’s tongue-in-cheek pieces are contrary to Australian counterpart artist Jake Holmes who forayed across a variety of mediums with an almost ‘pitiful’ persona.
Jake Holmes’ dreary dithering’s. We’ve all been there, bro.
The hazily splashed ink of Holmes’ ‘Dirt Life’, ‘Does Anyone Care’ and ‘I Fucked Up’ scream a lost mind, however zines such as ‘Since I Was Three’ celebrate the simple happiness of a kid having glasses.
Yogyakarta to Adelaide will remain at The Mill until the 23rd of October, so make sure to check it out and experience some international, yet frighteningly domestic, emotions by foreign/local artists.
