Cheap Thrill –
Living in Gallery with Made Arya Palguna

I Made Palguna is an artist who thrives on experimenting – when I visited his second-floor studio on Bisma street, not only were there stacks of canvas but also his own collection of painted ceramics and even a painted surfboard. So to no surprise he’s already told me he had a concept cooking in the back of his mind for his short Gallery residency.

After 24 hours, split between 3 consecutive days, Palguna presents “Cheap Thrill”, a body of work that was made on the second floor of Komaneka Fine Art Gallery from the Living in Gallery program.

Palguna is an Ubud born artist who studied in the Art Institute of Yogyakarta and continued to live there before moving back home to Bali in 2017. Unlike other Komaneka artist, Gallery founder Koman Suteja actually met him after he graduated university. He currently lives in Bisma, Bali with his wife and 3 children, and his father is also a painter and studied Ubudstyle traditional painting.

At the end of his painting process, I was surprised that the works displayed were a bit different from when I spoke about his initial concept at his studio. These works were different from the concept he told me earlier at his studio, but the more I saw the more I realized that ‘Cheap Thrill’ was part of his original idea informed by the setting of Komaneka Fine Art Gallery.

The subject matter of these paintings are varied; there are characters from Palguna’s world which always come from the everyday things that he’s seen- the cats, dogs and monkeys of Ubud. He’s also coveted the process of collage and integrated it into the paintings in his own technique; “I brought many things from home to the Gallery such as magazines, newspaper, thread, pastels, oil paint, karung (a coarse gunny bag usually used to store rice or coffee) and blacu (Cotton fabric used for Balinese ceremonies). I want my ideas to feel new and flow fresh from all these things I have.”

To Palguna, the limitation of Living in Gallery doesn’t feel so foreign; he’s experienced numerous residencies that have brought him all around the world. The biggest difference to him was that there were no other artists working in the space with him which allowed him to ease through the production process. The special time frame gave him his own personal predicament; his ego to paint and give maximum effort to each canvas was challenged by the physical limitations that were in hand. But slowly Palguna “enjoyed [the painting process] without feeling burdened thinking about the quantity of canvas I have to paint”.

The title ‘Cheap Thrill’ comes from how he sees that, as an artist, producing art can be something that is “cheap” (murah) in the sense that, simply, they need whatever is available and use the materials at hand to enjoy the simple act of painting and creating art. The paintings and multidisciplinary outlets of creativity attests to the complexity of his thoughts and the simplicity of his creation process.

9 December 2021
Sri Pande W