Yeo Workshop is pleased to present We Are Here and Still Life by Maryanto, the artist’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. Through meticulously hand-drawn scenes and an immersive installation depicting landscapes often in ruins, particularly those in Indonesia, Maryanto transforms these terrains into poignant archives marked by industrialisation, cultural memory, and exploitation: traces of humanity’s uneasy relationship with nature. The exhibition’s title, We Are Here and Still Life, points to the paradox of human desire to reconnect with nature, but increasingly through artificial means: from manicured gardens, aquariums, and terrariums to digital landscapes within video games and virtual reality. Yet Maryanto reminds us that preserving nature is deeply intertwined with preserving history and collective identity.
Building on his earlier explorations of utopia and journeys along forking paths, Maryanto presents a new body of work exploring nickel mining and the destruction of small islands across Indonesia. The seemingly dystopian landscapes in this exhibition reflect the intrusive and violent nature of these extractive processes. Alongside these recent paintings, Maryanto will collaborate with Singapore media-installation artist Chok Si Xuan to develop an installation that draws upon their respective affinities with the Banyan tree, which holds deep symbolic significance in Indonesia, both spiritually and politically. Its sacredness is further manifested through Breathe, Banyan Tree (Lake Tamblingan, Bali), which depicts a giant banyan tree standing majestically in the middle of the forest at the edge of Lake Tamblingan, with its roots cascading down from its branches.
Located along the slopes of Mount Lesung in Bali, Lake Tamblingan comes from the words: “Tamba”, for ‘medicine’ or ‘remedy’ in Javanese, and “Elingan”, which means ‘to remind’. Maryanto draws on the story of a plague that hit the surrounding villages, before a holy and powerful man took water from the lake to heal the community, to suggest the vulnerability and power that coexists between humans and nature.
In addition to nickel mining, Maryanto also explores a breadth of environmental issues in Indonesia that demand urgent public awareness and attention. From the near-extinction of Javan rhinoceros on Mount Pangrango to excessive shrimp farming around mangrove forests in Karimunjawa Island, his paintings highlight the intensity and gravity in which these environments are being rampantly pillaged for profiteering and development. Confronting such harsh realities, the works in We Are Here and Still Life reveal the shifting terrains of our sociopolitical narratives, meditating on a kind of spiritual ecology—where cultural histories and Javanese mythologies embedded in these forests and lands find renewed life and retelling.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Maryanto (b. 1977, Indonesia) creates powerful monochromatic paintings and monumental installations that dissect socio-political structures through the depiction of landscapes. His works investigate the impact of technological development, industrialisation, pollution, and resource exploitation on the natural world, reflecting the harsh realities in his home country. Through fable-like and theatrical settings, Maryanto's landscapes present deeply urgent concerns around the encroachment of the environment, both physical and cultural.
Maryanto has had solo exhibitions and presentations in Indonesia, Amsterdam, Singapore, Korea, Dubai, London, Hong Kong and Australia. He has participated in various biennales including the 2nd Industrial Biennale, Labin, Croatia (2018); Koganei Art Spot Chateau, Tokyo (2018); Setouchi Triennale, Naoshima, Japan (2016); Jakarta and Jogja Biennales, Indonesia (2015), Jeonnam International Sumuk Biennale (2025), etc. Other notable institutional group exhibitions include MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Thailand (2021); Jogja National Museum, Yogyakarta (2020); Yeo Workshop, Singapore (2019, 2017 and 2015); Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide; the Asia Culture Centre, Gwangju; the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (2017); Singapore Art Museum (2015); Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam; ArtAffairs, Amsterdam; and Heden, Denhaag (2013), Swiss National Museum Zurich Switzerland (2024), Muan Museum of Art Korea (2025). Fairs he has participated in include: Art Basel Focus, Hong Kong, Art Jakarta, ARTSG, ArtStage, Art Dubai Bawabba Solo presentation, Frieze Korea. His works are in the public collections of Kadist Foundation; Tropen Museum, Netherlands; Macan Museum, Indonesia; Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory: MAGNT, Australia; among others.
Chok Si Xuan (Singapore) is an artist who works with installations. Interested in cybernetics, specifically the feedback systems that occur between humans, living organisms and machines, she is curious about how post-human cultures and industrial materials shape the way contemporary society understands itself. She constructs and readapts systems within installations in hopes of challenging our own subjectivities of our environment, bodies and other organisms, organic or manufactured. Using predominantly found electronic objects, her choice of materials, and systems become a way to tap into the relationships we already have, expressing our shared likeness in them.
Within her practice, her current focus explores the concept of emergence within natural environments and man made systems. Pursuing the points of tensions between the material, immaterial, human, organic and mechanical, constructing installations out of found objects and systems that exist in our everyday lives, and using such systems and technologies to expand our physical reality.
