Originally born in Central Java in Indonesia, Christanto’s work is a powerful reminder of the human impact of disaster – the disaster of war, the trauma of disappearance and now the impact of the man made mud catastrophe in the Sidoarjo Region of East Java. Christanto’s interest in the mud disaster emerges from his previous work which deals with the trauma of his father’s disappearance, who disappeared along with multitudes of other Indonesians during the political purges of the mid-1960s. In the context of the mud disaster, the unrelenting build up of mud in the region, is making villages slowly vanish. As Gallery 4A’s Director, Aaron Seeto explains, “The entire history of a village, its livelihood and future is being buried beneath the mud. On one hand Christanto’s work is politically confronting but also a poetic experience that reminds us of human fragility and erasure in the face of disaster.”

Dadang Christanto was born in 1957 in Tegal, Central Java and studied painting in Yogyakarta. Over the past decade his work has gained recognition across Australia with solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Sherman Galleries in Sydney, and at the Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory. Christanto has been included in two Asia-Pacific Triennials at the Queensland Art Gallery as well he has exhibited in some of the key Contemporary Asian Art museums in the Asian region including Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Fukuoka of Modern Art, Fukuoka; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Kwangju Biennale (2000) as well as at the Venice Biennale (2003) and at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. In 1997, in recognition of his long term artistic achievement, he has been a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.