DIAN SUCI

By subverting the currently acknowledged patriarchal prayer, ‘Our Father in Heaven,’ In the Name of Our Mother on Earth reclaims a much older, prehistoric spiritual system—one rooted in feminine and cosmic power rather than modern religious hierarchies. This feminine knowledge, entangled with history and mythology, informs and guides Suci’s practice as an artist.

The works presented in this solo exhibition further solidify Suci’s distinguishing feature. Her paintings often centralise a female figure in red, dwelling in dimly lit, muted spaces. The figure’s facial expression is often hidden or turned, shying away from directness and clarity. Such paintings are warm, and in shadows they whisper. Itis as if Suci’s works are a soliloquy regardless of any hearers. Yetin this almost silence, Suci’s works embed a dense layer of stories on self and womanhood. While Suci’s figurative paintings are more intrapersonal, although not necessarily self-portraits, her installations address and expand the tangled societal issues mentioned above in a more concrete form, informed by the artist’s lyrical observation as a woman, mother, and daughter. Suci’s installation tends to combine hanging layers of translucent cloths, texts, paintings, and woodcarvings with a mystical nuance.

As part of the exhibition, Suci will also restage Larung: May the Blooms be Carried Safely through the Night(2024), an installation first exhibited in the SharjahBiennial16 - to carry (2025), Sharjah, UAE. This work is based on the artist’s research on women workers in Jepara and their role in the region’s economic development, while also echoing the historical figures such as the sixteenth-century queen, Ratu Kalinyamat, and Raden Adjeng Kartini. The thematic and conceptual resonance, added with a new painting that corresponds to the installation, will broaden this exhibition’s ecology.

Considering the nature of Suci’s works,the curatorial work will lean on the poetic, carefully focusing on emotion, atmosphere, and thematic resonance rather than a strictly historical or developmentalist approach. Spatial arrangements in between the artworks matter in evoking such nuance, while allowing a wise amount of intuition.

Suci’s last solo exhibition was held in 2018. In the Name of Our Mother on Earth, which will be her second, carries forward the artist’s focus on women’s societal entanglements, presented in a lyrical yet inherently deeply political manner, expanding the possibilities of her artistic presentation in the coming days.

Curated by Ibrahim Soetomo