I Putu Sudiana Bonuz was born in the tiny island of Nusa Penida of the southeast coast of Bali on 30 December 1972. In a place known for its fishing and seaweed farming, Sudiana began by painting fishing boats. His great interest in painting was unusual in a fishing village, but this did not discourage him from wanting to formally study painting. After finishing junior high school in Nusa Penida, he bravely moved to Bali to study at the High School of Fine Arts (SMSR). Then in 1995 he continued on to the Fine Arts College of Indonesia (STSI, now the Indonesia Arts Institute, ISI) in Denpasar.
There is an acute sensation of speed in Bonuz’s works. Especially in large paintings, there is often a strong impression of something exploding—an image of splendor with the dance of colors and shapes on the canvas that seems to emerge from a terrible explosion, like the universe that was freshly created after the Big Bang. The field of the canvas looks as if the sky is staging a cosmic drama.
Bonuz acknowledges that when he paints, he tends to rely on spontaneity. He almost never thinks beforehand about what he will paint. Everything happens at the moment of painting, without preconceptions. Artistic considerations remain, but are not decisive. Indeed he avoids intervention or mental calculation in the process of painting. This is why he likes to paint while chatting or listening to chat. “The aim is to divert the mind from the painting process. The mind is in the chat. Feelings and hands are focused in the painting. If the mind is busy with considerations about color or composition, for example, the painting becomes rigid. Because I paint abstract, starting and ending the process of painting is more determined by a decision of the heart,” he says.