Eko Nugroho: ‘We have to keep the ecosystem alive.’

It all started with a photocopier in 2000, when Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho began developing his comic book imprint Daging Tumbuh (DGTMB) (literally: “diseased tumour”). Bringing together illustrations from various artists, DGTMB followed copyleft principles, enabling mashups of pop culture and underground movements to be reproduced ad infinitum, without censorship or limitations on theme or topic. Bearing diverse influences—including Tetsu Kariya’s masked superhero Megaloman and works by comic giants like Lat, R. Crumb and Moebius—DGTMB heralded the iconic masked figures that have since defined Nugroho’s work as symbols for concealment, protection and performance.

The idea of the copy, along with the itinerant image of the mask, became a recurring motif across the artist’s work. Reproduced and rehashed in embroidery, sculpture, mural, and even theatre, no two copies are the same. Each composition reinterprets contexts with bold palettes, materials, and intricate linework to confront a range of sociopolitical issues that echo Nugroho’s musings on the evolving nature of community: that “every need has its own space and time.” For the 2017 public installation Bouquet of Love, he worked with waste collectors in Bali to transform plastic and electronic refuse into a chthonic swell unfurling its tentacles across a beach club’s façade, confronting the scourge of environmental degradation. For the 10th Biennale de Lyon in 2009, Nugroho created the site-specific public mural, Cut The Mountain and Let it Fly: a levitating mountain sliced into two, which critiqued the Mooi Indië (Beautiful Indies) landscape painting style that romanticised the Dutch East Indies under colonial rule.

Nugroho was among a new wave of Indonesian artists that emerged during the Reformasi era, which followed the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998, and gave way to unprecedented artistic freedoms. He began using masks and irreverent one-liners emblazoned on dolls, patches and murals to make playful jabs at Indonesian politics and society. The embroidered work Permen & politik mengandung pemanis buatan (Mints and politics both contain artificial sweetener), part of the installation Lot Lost (2013–2015), is but one example of Nugroho’s tongue-in-cheek brevity, which channels the trademark sarcasm of stiker angkot (minibus stickers) that appear on vehicles across Indonesia.

Today, amid rising arts censorship in Indonesia, Nugroho’s ebullient masquerade carries a tinge of millennium-era optimism, while speaking to artists who find themselves searching for their own graphic languages of resistance. That resonance extends to the artist’s ongoing focus on collaboration by carving out space to support and sustain the arts ecosystem in the country. In 2009, he established the independent art platform Versus Project for emerging artists to showcase their art in month-long exhibitions. In 2015, he introduced an arts curriculum for children, the Eko Nugroho Art Class, which brings together arts educators and young artists to plug gaps in Indonesia’s education system.

Between engaging with his hometown communities in Yogyakarta, nurturing the arts ecosystem in Indonesia, and his latest exhibition at STPI, Nugroho reflects on how his evolving practice has developed to bridge local and global conditions.

The motif of masks features heavily in your work as markers of social identity and individuality as well as metaphors for alienation and isolation. How did your interest in masks come about and how has the meaning of masks changed for you over time?

My initial interest in masks might be a throwback to my younger self, who was very fond of comic books. Growing up, I was surrounded by strong visual influences from comics and anime, especially during my teenage years. These visuals are historical reflections for me. Reading comics was genuinely a form of entertainment amidst many situations, and it provided a space where I could develop my fantasies about the world around me, as well as things beyond reality. The visuals from comics remain in my imagination and thoughts, and they continue to develop alongside my art practice to this day.

Masks also provide a broader meaning for me. Symbolically and metaphorically, masks represent the idea of identity that has long been central to the questions I pose through my artworks. Our identities today—as individuals and as a society living in a sophisticated and smart¹ modern age—often appear only as figures or individuals behind masks, rather than as our true selves. These figures observe many things without revealing the genuine and honest aspects of our humanity.

What has struck you the most when new audiences engage with, and at times reinterpret, the contextual forms and approaches defining your work? Based on your experiences, how can art remain a form of political expression once it enters the global stage of contemporary art?

I actually like it more when the public interprets my work through their own perspectives. Every individual has experiences, information, and affinities that are different. These are the things that inform how one interprets or reads an artwork. Therefore, I often prefer their perspectives when translating or expressing opinions about my works, especially those encountering my works for the first time. This opens up an opportunity for dialogue between my work and the public, creating a form of communication and broadening the meaning of the work itself.

In regard to “how art remains a form of political expression on the global stage,” art will always be a category of its own,² according to what is constructed and carried by the artists. How it is positioned on the global stage of contemporary art is beyond the artist’s control. For me, my artworks and I will remain focused on the topics, themes, and values that I fight for. Beyond that, interpretations of my work are outside of what I primarily think about.

The idea of art as dialogue is very significant to you: you’ve collaborated extensively with artists and communities, from the Daging Tumbuh (DGTMB) collective to the Wayang Bocor theatre group. How has that spirit of collaboration shaped your practice, especially with your experiences with the printmakers and papermakers at STPI?

Working in public spaces and interacting with communities is an indispensable and incredible art-making experience. All this while, I have existed in a position where it is as if the study and practice of painting has happened between myself, the art, and the studio. There isn’t a lot of space for interaction when one exists as a painter who focuses on their own [practice]. However, when I paint in public spaces, dialogues and communication emerge between myself and passers-by, the architecture, the spatial design, the atmosphere, and even the situations that happen around me. This is what appeals to me in developing community-based projects. Therefore, a lot of my works are collaborative in nature and involve various communities: artisan and craft communities, waste pickers, embroidery artisans, sculpture-makers,³ as well as other artists when creating performances.

Everything enlivens and feeds what, to me, is a more dynamic working pattern and character. Other than making the process less boring, working in ways that engage with other art practices often gives birth to new ideas. Indeed, it is not easy to foster communication and collaboration in order to realise an artwork, but these fundamental processes enrich my journey and art-making process.

In the 1990s, there was a huge influx of art collectives in Indonesia that responded to the sociopolitical conditions of the decade, from Apotik Komik to Taring Padi and ruangrupa. How has this communal idea of shared resources evolved in Jogja’s art scene today, and beyond?

In the same era when Taring Padi (1998) and ruangrupa (2000) emerged, I established the Daging Tumbuh (DGTMB) movement. Although these collectives emerged within the same era, their character and nature remain distinct. While ruangrupa and Taring Padi built communities that were communal and fixed, Daging Tumbuh—the comic that I created—functions more like a battery. This community is always open to members and doesn’t remain static, which means that it continues to exist communally, indefinitely.

Daging Tumbuh is a sporadic movement that can be carried out by anyone. This movement only requires a few people to execute, taking turns between and across different cities, places, and periods of time, in order to publish a work in the form of a book or comic. This movement exists because of a shared necessity at the time. This collective approach to art-making gave birth to critical works and pieces that speak to themes worth researching and discussing, influenced by an era when Indonesia was experiencing a tumultuous turning point in determining the trajectory of its democracy.

Today, the concept of community has developed rapidly. Our forms of communality are no longer physical, as they were in the late 1990s. Today is an era of digital communing, centred around social media. Although, unlike in the previous era, we may rarely meet or form collectives, the resulting movement is massive and widespread, both location-wise and space-wise. This is the character of an evolving era that we have to work with: every need has its own space and time.

In today’s age, these forms of movement are numerous, and new ones are constantly emerging. The youth are becoming increasingly emphatic and courageous in speaking up and engaging critically with subjects related to politics, the nation, the economy, as well as culture. What this means is that there are a number of [subjects] to focus on and build upon through the medium of art; [issues] that the wider public needs to be reminded of and informed about. The use of digital and social media today expands the movement beyond the limitations of physical space. This is the main difference from how it was in the late 90s; today, these movements are increasingly massive and widespread.

Speaking of DGTMB, printed matter such as comic books has been a huge influence on your practice. What were your earliest encounters with print, and how has your relationship with printed matter evolved?

Photocopying was when I first became interested in printed matter and the process of producing copies. I started the Daging Tumbuh (DGTMB) comic using a photocopier in the early 2000s. Each DGTMB comic book made using the photocopier had a different visual effect from one copy to another, perhaps because the ink level differed from one production to the next.

From that point on, I became more interested in and dug deeper into print and printed art, although I had already learnt about printmaking in high school, be it reduction print or silkscreen. The printmaking medium is highly interesting to me as it can be developed in two aspects of my work:

Firstly, in projects where I use print methods for merchandising. I prefer the character of manual printing, be it silkscreen or reduction print, as that is what makes my art merchandising more interesting: the resulting merchandise retains the character of a unique artwork, thus making it a limited-edition item.

The other aspect is in art-making. The development of printmaking as an art form, especially in Indonesia, is not as widespread or extensive as painting. The infrastructure and supporting systems around printmaking are lacking, aside from a few university campuses. There are a few private organisations or small communities that try to preserve print processes and build studios to produce fine-art printmaking pieces, but the development of printmaking remains very slow compared to the widespread and extensive development of painting.

But printmaking as an art form has a very interesting effect. Between 2012 and 2017, I started combining my paintings with silkscreen, printmaking, and printed matter, and even stencil techniques. Combining the character of printmaking with painting became an early project for me, from as early as 2009, with stencil techniques, because I like the nature of repetition, which turns into a patterning element or motif within an artwork.

The state [of printmaking] in Indonesia, indeed, has not changed much but the existence of independent graphic studios helps artists tremendously in exploring and creating with the print medium, although the methods remain conventional. Even so, this helps and supports the art-making activities of artists today. The discourse around printmaking as an art form is slowly growing and developing.

You work across textiles such as batik and embroidery, murals, sculpture, and installation. How is the medium of paper different to other mediums you’ve worked with, and what do you find interesting about it?

The interesting thing about the medium of paper is its unique character; it is more fragile than other mediums. For me, how paper, especially in STPI, can be made by hand, is incredibly intriguing, not to mention the fact that printmaking techniques available in STPI are much more distinct than those at a few other studios I have previously visited for residencies.

The use of paper as a medium has been part of my process of creation since the beginning. During my university years, buying canvas was much more costly than purchasing paper. Hence, my works from high school were primarily made on paper because it was more accessible to me. I even used a lot of found and reused papers, and repurposed offcuts from collages to create new works. It means that paper is not a new material for me; I often draw on it directly.

The other method I’ve often employed since high school is collage with paper. I like to cut images and photos from old magazines, paste them onto paper, and respond to them again with visuals or drawings. When I did my residency at STPI, both the handmade aspect of paper and the intriguing print methods challenged me to keep exploring. There was a great sense of curiosity, and it made my time at STPI feel too short to explore all of the printmaking techniques offered there. After all, paper was my earliest medium, even before painting on canvas, and thus my works on paper are no less important than my works in other mediums.

In 2009 and 2015, you launched the Versus Project and Eko Nugroho Art Class as collaborative, educational spaces for young artists to express their creativity. During ARTJOG 2026, you also collaborated with Versus Project to exhibit collaborative works. Could you tell us more about this idea of mentorship and how this has shaped your practice as an artist?

My principle is that we have to keep the ecosystem alive. In art-making, we have to be aware that what will keep art alive is also our own artistic practice; we’re the ones who have to preserve the art that grows around us, together with its ecosystems.

In 2009, I initiated DGTMB as a form of mentorship and support system. DGTMB refers to a design movement that is applied to products (merchandise such as T-shirts, tote bags, hats, and others. DGTMB also collaborates with various fine artists (painters, printmakers, and sculptors) to sell their own merchandise, as well as to aid in its production. It is also a support system in the form of providing an additional income, albeit a small one, for artists while they are still struggling to sell artworks from their main practice.

As time went on, together with the development of online shops, artists were able to manage their own sales by selling their merchandise online. Today, DGTMB still serves as a support system for the art world, leaning towards design and merchandising. I design art merchandise so that my work can become more accessible to the wider public—especially the younger generation, who may have difficulty accessing my works, which rarely appear in local galleries, but can collect my artwork in the form of products.

In 2015, I established the Eko Nugroho Art Class. This project aims to provide a support system for the art world by providing art education for the general public, especially for children who are interested in art from an early age. It takes the form of small classes guided by teachers whom we have trained, playing with art in ways that aim to cultivate the soul, sensibility, creativity, and sensitivity in art-making. This also serves as a therapeutic activity as well as an art education programme, especially in the visual arts, for children.

At the end of the day, art has benefitted me a lot, and that is why I also try to give back to the general public and ensure that the art ecosystem keeps moving, developing, and expanding. In Indonesia, art has not been a core programme in formal education, so we as artists have to be the ones responsible for cultivating it and making it a programme that can reach all layers of society. Through art, communities can form themselves better, develop a stronger sense of identity, and better understand their culture.

In 2009, I also started the Versus Project, a small space for artists to present their works. Through an open call, this project gives artists the opportunity to organise a month-long solo exhibition, especially those who have not had the opportunity to exhibit in commercial galleries. We provide full support, free of charge; we select the proposals, and the artists are given a chance to exhibit. These small steps are our way of paying it forward and building a more solid and engaging ecosystem for the younger generation.

What are your hopes for the present and the future of Jogja’s, or Indonesia’s, art scene?

I’m very optimistic about [Jogja’s and Indonesia’s art scene] and see a promising future. Indonesian artists are very experimental and open to possibilities. This is one of our strengths: art projects that are exhilarating to observe and appreciate. I’m sure that the Indonesian art scene will continue to develop and expand, bringing about bold, unique works. I also hope that Indonesia’s young artists will gain more recognition on the international stage. This will catalyse the emergence of new artists, sparking further developments within the Indonesian visual art scene.

Could you share a few of the upcoming projects you are working on?

I am currently working on a few projects in tandem in the near future. Last month, I was preparing for a group exhibition, ARTSUBS, in Surabaya, Indonesia. In November, I’ll be part of an exhibition at Art Dubai, as well as a group exhibition at Museum MACAN in Jakarta. Next year, in April, I’ll also be showing my works in a solo exhibition at DANYSZ Gallery in Paris, France.

Translated by Liza Markus. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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World View distils conversations with leading artists from around the globe, to explore how they see the world through the prism of their life and art.