Born in central Java and based in Australia since 1999, Dadang Christanto (b. 1957) uses his practice to honour the victims of political violence and crimes against humanity. His large scale paintings, which are mostly spare renderings on raw linen, use the human head as a recurring motif to express the suffering of victims and the silent grief they endure. The emotion in Christanto’s work is due in part to his own father’s disappearance and presumed death when he was a young boy, yet he continues to create art that calls for compassion regardless of faiths and political beliefs. An artist of significant international standing, his oeuvre includes painting, drawing, performance, sculpture and installation.
Christanto was the first Indonesian artist to represent his country at the Venice Biennale in 2003. He has been included in major exhibitions worldwide including ‘Nineteen Sixty-Five’, QUT Art Museum (2016); Sydney Biennale (2010); Setouchi International Art Festival, Kagawa, Japan (2010); ‘In the Balance: Art for a Changing World’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2010); Adelaide Biennale, Art Gallery of South Australia (2008); ‘They Give Evidence’, Art Gallery of NSW (2005); Yogyakarta Biennial, Indonesia (2003); Kwangju Biennale, South Korea (2000); the Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil (1998); and the first and third Asia-Pacific Triennials of Contemporary Art, QAG|GOMA (1993 & 1999). His work is held by the National Gallery of Australia, all Australian state galleries, and major collections in Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and Europe.
