Do We Have to Arm Our Self
200 x 150 cm (3 panels)
Charcoal & oil on canvas
2016
Portrait series with weapons, there are Salvador Dali, Andi Warhol, Jimmy Hendrix. Even with a white background, three figures of those artists were made dark transparent. There are two visual text occurred in these three works, they are artists and weapons. It seems like the artists do not only represent the visual artists but also artists in general. The weapon has the connotation of self-defense or even killing machine. Initially this idea was obtained by Gus Purwa when he saw cases of artists’ works which were vandalized by religious dissemble community organization because it didn’t suit their ideology. Gus Purwa has an assumption that an artist should arm himself, in this case it is not a verbal weapon like guns, swords and others but with ideological vision.