Sunjin Galleries will host Ketut Teja Astawa first solo exhibition ‘Batman Forever’
19 March through 9 April 2009. Previous collaborations with the artist have been well received, the last one being the 11th Beijing International Art Exposition in 2008. Astawa is a promising young generation Indonesian painter working in the style of the Balinese mainstream figurative art.

But unlike artists from the same generation who identify with abstraction with traditional elements from Balinese culture, modern iconography is heavily popularized in Astawa’s works. The central characters are often painted in intense colours inspired by popular mass media imagery. His style is characteristically naïve with a childlike manner of rendering figures in flat and simplified stylization resulting from a delightful mischievous imagination. His paintings are a good reflection of the skeptical mood as he does not merely describe what he sees and feels, he suggests them distinctively with an internal curiosity and humour about the mundane things that surround him.

‘Batman Forever’ exhibition chronicles the artist’s fascination with globalization and social cultural issues which Astawa delves between a reaffirmation and cultural reconstruction of his Indonesian descent. Batman is the central figure on his canvas. In his world, American folk heroes dominate over the heroes of puppet show and the gods of the Balinese pantheon. Add on to this league the heroes and villains of Indonesian politics, we all know what Astawa perceive in thoughts. One feels in these paintings the shaping presence of modern media and the artist consistent dejected skepticalism. These works will serve to alter our preconceived notions of Balinese art and arrest our attention.

Teja Astawa’s schooling at the Denpasar High School of Art (1996-2000), provided him with techniques and a borrowed visual modernity as he explores a new flux of ideas and images emerging fast from mass culture.