There is a new epidemic trend in the contemporary art of Asia sweeping through the population of younger artists: Animamix Art. The question is whether this is a true movement or just a matter of mass imitation? 

The core term for this art form is Animation-Comic, but most people active in contemporary art refer to it as  Animamix Art, a term introduced in 2004 by Taiwanese curator and critic  Victoria Lu, as the art form was beginning to grow into maturity in Asia, as is the case today. 

From December 2009 up to the beginning of this last January, the New York Times and  reliable, trustworthy cyber media, as well prestigious and reputable art agendas like Universe-Universe in the Asia-Pacific region, have published articles on Animamix Art Biennials and a marathon of smaller exhibitions in respected museums in Asia, all surrounding themes that fall into the Animamix Art paradigm. 

For example, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Shanghai; Today’s Art Museum, Beijing; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, and even the Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou.

In an interview, Victoria Lu, in her capacities as creative director for MOCA Shanghai  and biennial artistic director, said that the character of Animamix in  Asian contemporary art reflects the prevailing local directions of ease and the idealization of the beauty of youth, a tendency set forth through text and visuals, including the contrasting bright colors  borrowed from current visual media technology. 

Animamix Art and Low Brow Art

With this understanding, we can compare the animamix art ala Lu with the low-brow art movement of the west introduced by illustrator and comic maker Robert William in California, who speaks his mind through Juxtapoznya magazine that is distributed worldwide. Another example is Mark Ryden, who has become popular for the style of pop surrealism (another term for low brow art). 

And, certainly one could not forget, the low-brow American artist, Shepard Fairey, who followed with the controversy over his digital-poster of Obama’s face. Up to now a debate is still raging about this among the art critics of the west, who tend to see the low brow movement as little more than a strategic political ploy with art  to counter the art establishment as epitomized by contemporary visual artists such as Damien Hirst (England) or  Jeff Koon (America). Thus, the case of Fairey; political content in a campaign via the Obama poster.  

What about the low brow artists of Europe? In France, there is Miss Van, who has faced events similar to those run into by the American Mark Ryden, due to her tendency toward pop surrealism and a fantasy world created through the visualization of realistic figures and mysterious cartoon-animation images all dumped together in a strange mix in her works. 

In the west, in general, the low brow artists heavily follow in the footsteps of the pop artists   of the 1960s and 1970s, with the same kind of visual tendencies inherited from the neo-Dada tradition: the effort to dismantle the standing of the high art of the west. 

This is what differentiates the Animamix Art statements from the superflat manifesto of artist  Takashi Murakami, who flaunts the Japanese manga comic style  and references the flat visual effects of  Japanese traditional graphics, ukiyo-e, as well as delving onto the core issue of Japanese pop culture, which is the “shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture”. Lu mentions Murakami as having embraced the Asian character that is innate in Animamix style. 

Lu argues that the Animamix artists not only blatantly set forth the symbols of low art and youth sub-culture images, but also applies a strategy toward placing them in the position of high art. However, the Animamix artists themselves prefer to simply eliminate the boundaries between low brow and high art.  

From certain points of view, the Animamix artists in Asia exhibit many similarities to the low-brow artists in the west,  with their “out-of-control” focus on the discipline of art, and selective inspiration by cyber space sources that is at once random and shifting,  besides their penchant for computer graphics. They are also very close to the creative industry, the world of street art (graffiti) and the cross-sectoral digital community.  

These artists are mostly self-taught or the output of noted academies, who jump into the  “in-out flow” as illustrators, graphic designers, fashion and film wardrobe designers, comic artists and cartoonists, CD cover designers, interior designers, and doll designers, or even mural painters. 

In Indonesia, even though one won’t find many designers, mural artists, or illustrators in this genre like  Shepard Fairey, or artists of his preceding generation like Andy Warhol, who have the opportunity to develop into major artists,  symptoms of the Animamix Art trend are beginning to emerge as possibilities that are more than just some crazy passing trend. As in the case of Zeit geist, artists do pump spirit into their own eras. In general, there have been a few  painters and visual artists embracing the Animamix Art patterns in their work to relatively make it in Indonesia. One example is Nyoman Masriadi, whose character drives hi minto experimentation with this genre. 

Amalia’s world

Now we also have artist Amalia Kartika Sari, who is called Amel for short. At the tender age of 22, she has been able to channel the spirit of Animamix Art into Indonesian in such a  way that it is heating up day by day. Amel has a solid educational background in Visual Design from the Bandung Institute of Technology. 

Taking a look at her artworks, we can see that she is used to working “sporadically, jumping from one thing to another”. Once she created graffiti, and painted murals in Bandung for months on end, just like a street artist. Now, she is focusing on creating art on her laptop. She sends in her illustrations to several top urban art magazines, such as BabyBoss. She also finds time to take part in custom sneaker exhibitions, and has even won urban art festival appreciation in Jakarta for this effort. 

As well, Amel also sends her clothing designs to apparel makers  like NKL 347,  and has even sent logo and toy designs to London, America and Rumania through the Internet. She certainly does like to jump from one thing to another in her experimentation with art of all kinds, including typography, character design of designing vinyl toys. 

As Amel frequently says, “But I’ve seen some people like me, graphic designers, who cross the line and become half artist half designer”.

Over the past few years, she has been making large paintings and installations as well, which fall into the definition set out by Victoria Lu: certainly there are a lot of bright colors  in her work, and a sense of locality in an urban sub-culture that encompasses the matters of beauty, convenience and ease. 

As an artist, or perhaps, more accurately, creative worker, Amel represents an urban generation that lives in a “fragmented” world, existing in the virtual reality of the global digital network of the internet, as well as in the mundane world of local culture. 

They have the capacity to enjoy an original German punk band and to feel “the closeness in the distance”, as well as enjoying arrangements of traditional Javanese music that feels “close aesthetically”.  They can also bridge the cultural gap and combine the two, as in The World is Flat by that using the capability of information technology, which is flat and narrow, to cross over and between diverse cultures in a real and present manner. 

Amel understands what Friedman expressed in the statement: “in my works I create a fantasy world of colors and vivid characters that are rich in diverse identity as is the case with animal fables”. 

She at one time depicted herself and narrated as Cleopatra, and another time as a beautiful woman among the temples in the Roro Jonggrang tale. Similarly, another time Amel painted herself as a woman in “Reorg Ponorogo” costume in a comic-style that hinted of “manga”, as well as a Balinese girl complete with frangipani flowers. In another painting she became Snow White with the Seven Dwarves.

Also interesting in this  solo exhibition titled Happily Never After is that it gives a sense of her expertise in craft making.. A designer does not suddenly and instinctively come up with an initial draft for a design, selected colors and patterns or the media that will be the final result.

Of all the things to be appreciated about Amel is her uniqueness, with her narrations and texts encompassing the frame and painting that emerge as a part of the story.

Amel designs in such a way that she selects the teakwood with the help of an expert in wood so that the theme is engraved into or incorporated into the frame. 

The installation works, in addition to the paintings exhibited, the ability to combine the themes and forms, such as rocking chairs, and other aesthetic elements are interesting enough to be appreciated.

Just like that defined by Victoria Lu, Amel uses her own method to explore the visual strategies of youth, human creativity that grow in urban egalitarian culture, through crossing the boundaries between the digital cyber world and the aura of youthful beauty.

The theme of this solo exhibition is also tickled with the letter N in Happily (N) Ever After, seemingly a proposal by an anxious young woman who wants a progressive future, of course as a professional artist. In fact, to finally enter into marriage, as a woman-----an Eastern stereotype-----after which to continue her profession, she still appears to want to bargain. An intelligent emancipatory idea.

Perhaps Amel will eventually be an artist producing fairly good Animamix art that will be appreciated, and of course represent Indonesia. Who knows?