Measuring two meters high and titled “Tree”, this sculpture is poised strikingly in space. As a free-standing image, it claims a decisive, physical presence. When viewing it we encounter and deal with such a claim.

A stem rises vertically from a cylindrical container, forcefully extending the full reach of the plant. Branches shoot out to its right and left, issuing from the stem at regular intervals almost for its entire height. They vary in length and are aligned in changing directions.

Flowers are in full bloom; they are opened maximally, with petals and stamens shown stretched outwards to their utmost extents. They appear at terminal ends of branches. The stem is crowned by a bloom similarly opened as those on the branches and oriented simultaneously in two directions. This is to say the flower at the very top has two aspects placed back-to-back, facing in directions opposite to one another.

The bloom’s dual aspect at the stem’s summit heralds complexities entailed in viewing this sculpted flowering plant. In this respect I suggest the flowers are significant indicators of the work unfolding in its manifold aspects, in correspondingly manifold directions, and of our reception of these aspects.

— T. K. Sabapathy, excerpt from “On Seeing Yunizar’s Sculptures” (2022)
 

Yunizar

Yunizar (b. 1971, Talawi, West Sumatra, Indonesia) is a graduate of the Indonesian Institute for the Arts (ISI) in Yogyakarta and a prominent member of the Jendela group, Indonesia’s most prominent contemporary art collective. In 2007, Yunizar held his first solo museum exhibition at the National University of Singapore Museum (NUS), Singapore. He has also received Best Painting award by the Peksiminas III Exhibition (1995) and Best Painting from the Philip Morris Award V (1998).

Yunizar’s artistic training is reflected in his complex style of expression through interesting compositions and subtle color scheme. Natural elements are subjects of his large canvases and bronze sculptures. Conceived from the holistic concept of “rasa” (the act of perceiving the whole at once, involving simultaneously feelings, emotions, sensations, perceptions and judgments), his works depict visions of a lost world, so natural and archetypal as to become mythological. Unaffected by any trend coming from contemporary society, Yunizar silently witnesses the transformation of Indonesian traditional culture, gradually eroded under the pressure of modernity, yet present contingencies can’t override his own dimension.
 

Lender: Tang Contemporary Art