M. Irfan

M Irfan is known for his large-scale representations of technological achievements of modernity such as locomotives, steel constructions of bridges and buildings. In his latest work, he has turned his attention to the artistic accomplishments of antiquity - painting statues from ancient Greco-Roman mythology. His latest body of work explores the notions of temporality of art throughout history.

Similar to his previous work, Irfan has chosen to depict a seemingly long-lasting, strong and enduring material: stone. Comparable to the metal slowly rusting away, the marble stone in this series also shows traces of erosion – many statues survived as torsos and fragments only. The once powerful and fascinating creations of humans have been subjected to all kinds of processes of degradation – climate, corrosion, destruction by wars and disasters. Both metal constructions and stone artefacts show the transience of materiality.

To a deeper level, this new body of work is an apt metaphor for the transience of existence. Through metamorphosis, art has its own power to endure and struggle against time and oblivion. Irfan re-actualises an art style that exposes the sense of time. While the artworks can still be celebrated, the meanings once given to them are faded and replaced with other, newer perspectives. The artist contemporises these ancient figures by juxtaposing colourful elements, in soft and bright pop colours, or as lines lacing their way in geometric abstraction. The artist creates another world beyond history, while contemporaneously becoming history. This series reopens the discourse on the temporal nature of art – whether classical or contemporary - and its relevance at a particular point in time.

M. Irfan was born in 1972 in West Sumatra, Indonesia. He studied metal craft at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI), in Yogyakarta where he currently lives and works. Irfan has exhibited extensively locally including at the National Gallery of Indone

Submitted by Affinity ART