Muchlis Fachri

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a visual artist. So when I studied Visual Art in university, I didn't want to miss any chance. I've suffered many failures during my study and many students feel disappointed with the system of the university and the lecturers. This makes me do rebellious things or movements, in or out of the system of the university. I always do experiments with the mediums when making an artwork and doing so gave me the opportunity to participate in my first group exhibition in Galeri Cipta II in Jakarta.

I've tried almost every medium like painting, woodcut, street art, digital, animation, and performance art. But the more I know about the technique of each medium, the more I feel saturated. So, I decided to bring my work to the starting line, which is "drawing". It is very important for me to make the design first before executing the artwork in different mediums.

Everyday, I always remember to draw some objects in my sketchbook for stocks and to practice my skill to take my drawing to the "next level". Everything I see live or from Instagram could inspire me to draw constantly. "Lowbrow" is the method that I choose to complete my visual works.

Social media is a very important tool for me to publish my new drawings or other artworks freely. I feel that social media is like an e-gallery that curates my artworks. For me, social media now becomes a medium for young artist to compete with other artists or public. In the future everyone will be famous in 15 minutes. In fact, social media artist is more famous than gallery artist. Every activity that we post on social media can be viewed by everyone in the world straight from their gadget. I feel like people are being controlled by the digital world. People are being controlled by the system and the need to get attention from other people, institute, and environment. People are tied up in one big circle of life. Routine makes us life like we're living in one huge cage and the cage is our city, Jakarta.