MEGAN NUGROHO

Land Language/Bahasa Bumi is collaborative two person show between Samuel Alexander Forest and I at Tutu Gallery. Having grown up on opposite sides of Java, Indonesia, we made works grounded in homelandscapes and spiritual bonds with the self, the earth, and native folklores.

Megan Nugroho reimagines the natural outside world and the human body as one. Her work explores a mystical land where bodies are rooted to the earth, limbs take on lives of their own, and flowers’ reproductive organs go wild. In Javanese lore, the goddess of the sea channels her mystical essence through the color green that spreads and permeates everyday motifs and objects. These drawings, suffused with enchanting hues of green and other earthy colors of Java, provide a place where magic and drama flourish. 

Taking on familiar motifs, her drawings infuse new and eased meanings. The human body, often so restricting and angular, finds its freedom. It softens and grows as it pleases, curving and turning. The spiral, a divine symbol used to represent life and growth and which reoccurs through several pieces, more so resembles movement and rest. The creature lying down in leisure, nesting in a spiral as a spiral.

Down below, the land unfolds beneath the surface. Neraka, the underworld, is often described in layers, like the earth, whose hidden facades are rendered in these works as different colored soils and sediments. Critters and plants living within, split open to reveal the underground’s architecture. Altogether they enchant you into a world above and below, far away and up close, outside and within.