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Syagini Ratna Wulan / Indonesia b.1979 / Parhelion (installation view) 2021 / Acrylone butadine styrene plastic, stainless steel and lacquer paint / 300 x 500cm / Courtesy: The artist and ROH Projects / © Syagini Ratna Wulan / Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA
Syagini Ratna WulanParhelion 2021
Not Currently on Display
Syagini Ratna Wulan contemplates how we consume colour through images today. The fact that our viewing experience is altered by using computers and gadgets — as well as the awareness that digital images are often manipulated and distorted — contributes to the ambiguity of colour reception and optical effects that Ratna Wulan explores.
Ratna Wulan’s most recent series, ‘Halo’, emerged through exploration of how artificial colour can emulate the physical and mathematical phenomena that produce light and colour in nature. This includes the parhelion (or sun dog) which is caused by sunlight refracting off ice particles in the atmosphere to produce bright spots on either side of the sun.1 Using cast resin, lacquer paint, wood, plastics, acrylic sheets and pigments, Ratna Wulan recreates these phenomena across a range of structures.
The series also employs a new method: hundreds of modular prism shapes amass to build an overall colour gradation, while each small prism creates additional angled surfaces, so the spectrum shifts through different viewpoints across the sculptural surface. Synthetic materials, hard edges and polished surfaces are delicately balanced by minimalist palettes and subtle shifts in tone. Similarly, Ratna Wulan balances the determined precision of mathematics and science with the fleeting sensations of natural colour phenomena.
Endnotes:
1 Syagini Ratna Wulan, artist’s statement, June 2021.
Syagini Ratna Wulan is a prominent proponent of abstraction in Indonesian art, drawing broad influences from colour theory and Western science to digital and screen-based contemporary culture.
Ratna Wulan first began painting in 2016; however, it has since become a signature aspect of her practice, which continues to include installations, participatory projects and representational works. Deeply concerned with the interactive possibilities of abstraction, she is fascinated by the unique ways we perceive colour and the individual sensibilities they can have upon us.
Beyond colour, Ratna Wulan experiments with the limits of painterly abstraction as her works become sculptural, manifesting in a plethora of geometries, textures and materials. She creates shaped canvases with raised surfaces and modular forms, and incorporates lacquer, plexiglass and steel. She works on custom-made canvases and frames and fastidiously controls the palette, working with producers to mix unique colour combinations rather than sourcing commercially available colours.