Eileen Tracy Harsono

Throughout my curatorial practice, I was inspired to explore the human condition. These ideas distilled into my exhibition’s theme: Freedom, Construct, and Repression. Through my art, I discussed the effects of societal systems upon identities, and the role of individuals in society. With my artistic intention, I hope to share insightful thoughts and ideas amongst viewers.

My body of work consists of multiple ideas shared through various styles and media. I started my exhibit with Duality of Art and Reality—a digital film with two contrasting characters that symbolise personal liberty and societal conformity. My exhibition’s intention is further explored in Conversations. Through using oil paints, I created cool and warm-toned lights and shadows (Scott, 2018), effectively showcasing how social norms can inhibit freedom of character. Meanwhile, Phonies for Cocktails utilises a digital medium to create dystopian-like effects, illustrating social expectations that repress sincere emotions.

Following that, I created pieces that elaborate on issues of personal freedom. This is evident in Escapism, an oil painting inspired by the magic realism movement. With off-balanced proportions and dark tones, the artwork captures an eerie atmosphere that conveys self-imprisonment. Similarly, Fact & Fiction questions the role of media and entertainment in shaping identities. With physical books and a monochrome colour scheme, this composition illustrates how romanticised expectations inhibit innate expression. By presenting this artwork in 3D, I aimed to showcase everyday scenes in a tangible form.

While arranging To Understand Me, I took inspiration from the colours and textures of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Neo-Expressionist oeuvre (Columbia, N.D.) and the geometry in Piet Mondrian’s utopian abstractions (Google Arts and Culture, 2020). While textures and shapes symbolise systematic structures, colours and lines portray society's vitality and interconnectedness. This large-scale piece epitomises individual independence within contemporary civilisations. This concept contrasts the following artwork, titled Panopticon—a 3D model of a never-ending staircase built from cardboard. With a phthalo blue colour that symbolises authority, this artwork comments on ceaseless, repressive societal pressures that place value on success. Lastly, I chose to conclude my exhibition with a hopeful tone through Human Acts. With the saturated colours and impasto brushstrokes, I depicted humanity's power in attaining a harmonic life unassociated with negative societal influence.

By arranging my exhibition in the aforementioned sequence, viewers can explore my artistic intentions cohesively. Because viewers walk from the right side of the room, I set up the displays to start from right to left. While the digital video effectively summarises the exhibition’s theme, the next pieces discuss various ideas, including social norms, individual expectations, and structural systems. By concluding the exhibit with Human Acts, I seek to leave a positive impression amongst audiences. Further, I displayed the paintings slightly above eye-level, as almost all artworks have a considerably large size--this encourages the viewers to take a step back and view the exhibit in its entirety.

During the assembly of this exhibition, there were several unavoidable challenges. While I initially wanted to use a larger screen to display the film, this wasn't possible as I lacked the necessary technological devices. Furthermore, I couldn't hang up Escapism due to the lack of space on the wall, and also had to display Fact & Fiction beneath the viewer’s eye level due to its heavy weight. Despite these compromises, the exhibition presents the artworks in an organised arrangement, connecting the artwork's thematic links.

While the exhibition embodies various art styles and mediums, several stylistic relationships are evident in realistic figure paintings, illustrative portrayals of human activities, vibrant colours, eccentric brushstrokes, and monochromatic colour schemes. Nonetheless, the presence of a human figure is evident in each piece, as individuals and societies make up the exhibition’s central theme. Each artwork takes disparate approaches to the main topic, embracing various technical, stylistic, and conceptual elements to discuss Freedom, Construct, and/or Repression.

Curating this exhibition has allowed me to grow as a learner and an artist. I’ve gained technical competence in various mediums, such as in realist oil paintings, 3D constructions, and video editing. More than that, this exhibition allowed me to artistically explore fascinating concepts and thought-provoking ideas. Through this exhibition, I strive to share the same insightful knowledge amongst viewers, offering them a unique perspective of the world.