Antonius Kho

My works, like my culture, are mosaic: they consist of vignettes of  tropical and earth  tones scattered across the canvas in an obsession patterning of human figures and masks. When looking at it, though, it is impossible to focus on these individual patterns or sub-patterns, one’s attention is drawn away, made to run from one color surface to the other. dance across the canvas from one tone to the other. until this visual search identification signs: eyes. Eyes lurk everywhere in my  works, “They are the ultimate presence or truth” , therefore the life behind the mask-and, from an aesthetic point of view. 

The vibrant of earth tones of my native Java find life and substance in  carefully structured compositions. My seeks to resolve the fluid, graceful, mutable philosophy of Indonesia with solid, reasonable, almost cubist forms. These rich and various forms are rendered in slashing, vigorous strokes, with generous application of tropical colors.

My paintings are  figurative while having the formal qualities of abstraction. They can thus be interpreted at both levels, without the one interfering on the other. One may let oneself be either haunted by the weird presence of the "eyes" and masks or entranced by the hypnotic quality of the color patterns.