'Translucent' : Permitting the passage of light /  Allowing light to pass through

 

A Solo Exhibition by Meliantha Muliawan

 

 

Translucent is Meliantha Muliawan’s first solo exhibition in Yogyakarta. Meli has been presenting children as her subject matter for quite awhile. Instead of romanticising children’s figures as simply adorable, cute, and predictable, figures of children were reworked in a different set of settings. During her residency in Redbase Foundation Yogyakarta, Meli began to observe more about children’s behaviours and expression. Translucent is a series of works with resin as the primary medium. Not only that resin is aesthetically pleasing, but resin also resonates to Meli’s personal reflective process. As the light permeates the coloured resin, it creates a point of entry to understand Meli’s simultaneously juxtaposition of characters, as well as to understand the contrasting traits among them.

 

In this series of works, Meli predominantly experimented with resin as a medium. Resin is not only visually attractive, but it is also a medium that permits lights to pass through. The translucent nature of resin paves the way for light to pass through with slightly distorted effect. For Meli, this effect resembles an underwater like setting, as it may appear to be transparent but does not represent an actual depth. The same applies to Meli’s depiction of children, as they are not aimed to be transparent but rather contextualised in an unlikely pairing to create a surreal like images.

 

Meli concluded that children are indeed miniature of an adult capable of conveying diverse and complex ranges of expressive emotions. The heightened surreal setting in Meli’s works is achieve by portraying children in adult-like manner, as illustrated by her pairings of images with words. The experience of going to sekaten, a night festival to celebrate the Islamic New Year, was transformative for her. Sekaten includes a more basic version of an amusement park with adrenaline stimulating devices designed to entertain. For Meli, Sekaten in general creates a dizzying effect. This simulated feelings are translated in her series of sekaten inspired series that includes psychedelic hologram resin in relation to several other objects related to the sekaten and children’s participation in it. Meli’s colour palettes not only echo emotions, but rather the often perplexing and disconnected children-adult relations.

 

Translucent encapsulates the juxtaposition of children and adult characters in an unlikely scenario. Meli’s figures are not to be read as lucid, but as translucent. As the resin paves ways for light, these series of works are to illuminate different aspects of children that are sometimes taken for granted. Despite all these complexities between children and, Meli will continuously experiment and explore children as her subject matter as well as resin as a medium.

 

 

 

Text by Indi Utami