Roby Dwi Antono

b.1990, Java Province, Indonesia
Lives and works in Yogyakarta

Roby Dwi Antono is a visual artist mainly creating surrealistic paintings as well as sculptures and prints. His work opens a portal to another universe where spaceships, aliens, dinosaurs and creatures with humanly features come together. These surrealistic creations that once lived only in Dwi Antono’s imagination come to life in a new realm on his canvas. Inspired by his childhood memories and love for Fiction movies, his paintings are left for the viewer to interpret. Inspired by artists such as Mark Ryden and Yoshitomo Nara, his work is often referred to as a contemporary juxtaposition of Surrealism and Classical Renaissance imagery. He has been featured both in Indonesia and internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions.

The contradicting characteristics seen in his subjects are a reflection of the two sides of everything. In his print Ranger Merah (2021), a child with insidious eyes that somehow bleed innocence is portrayed with a dead dinosaur corpse behind her. She stands staring right back at the viewer, smugly wearing her prey’s head, holding the weapon with a sense of uncertainty washing over her face. This paradox of playfulness and harm, cuteness and wickedness is a repeating scenery in Dwi Antono’s work.