Jumaldi Alfi (b. Lintau, Sumatra, Indonesia) has consistently been exploring new possibilities in painting. Over the past ten years his paintings have shown shifting themes and styles. He is particularly known for his compelling personal iconography of visual signs, reflecting existential and spiritual experience on both, an individual and collective level. In creating his comprehensive painting series such as Blackboard Paintings or, more recently, the series of Melting Memories, Collage Paintings, Alfi draws on a scope of references from text to empirical objects of the natural world to Renaissance paintings and his own memories; the effect of his work being at once mysterious and intimate. Jumaldi Alfi lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and has exhibited extensively in Asia as well as internationally. Recent important exhibitions include Re-reading Landscape, Mooi Indies, ARNDT Singapore, 2014 and Do not Shoot the Painter, UBS Collection exhibition, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan, Italy, 2015. Alfi is a member of the artists’ group Jendela and a co-founder of the artists’ initiative and cultural platform OFCA International (Office For Contemporary Art). As co-founder of several artists collectives he developed SaRanG, a location which provides a physical infrastructure of several buildings hosting different art institutions in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
photographed by Benny Kurniadi