S. Teddy Darmawan works across a variety of mediums to investigate social, historical, familial and environmental problems, questioning his identity within each context. His works encompass painting, drawing, installation art, performance art and sculpture in which the self-portrait is an integral part and functions as the central motif. Besides the self-portraits, the artist has a personalised visual language and borrows familiar motifs from everyday encounters – the outlined face, the wheel, and mechanic’s tools - employing ‘trial and error’ to these motifs in his practice. S. Teddy D is committed to the realities of history, society and other pertinent issues that stem from a deep-seated desire for greater cultural dialogue.
Born 1970 in Padang, Indonesia, S. Teddy Darmawan studied painting at Indonesia College of Fine Arts (STSI), Solo and also in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Indonesia Institute of Arts (ISI), Yogyakarta but did not complete either programme. The artist participated in a residency at Ludwig Art Forum in Aachen, Germany in 2000 and was shortly after awarded the prize for sculpture at the Twelve Choise Lucky Strike Young Talented hosted by Gedung 28 in Jakarta. He currently lives and works in Yogyakarta.
Recent solo exhibitions were held at Wallworks Galerie, Paris (2011); Langgeng Art Foundation, Yogyakarta (2011); Gallery Langgeng, Jakarta (2011); Sin-Sin Fine Art, Hong Kong (2010); Ark Galerie, Jakarta (2010); National Museum of Singapore (2009); CIGE, Beijing (2008) and Nadi Gallery, Jakarta (2007). His works have also been the subject of group exhibitions at the Portrait Gallery, Canberra (2012); Kota Baru Parhyangang, Bandung (2011); MOCA, Shanghai, (2011); Galeri Canna, Jakarta (2010), Sin-Sin Fine Art, Hong Kong (2009) and the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2008).

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