Artist Collaboration / 14
For our 14th Peer/Peer Collaboration, Indonesian Tab space artist Angkasa, collaborated with British artist Richard Phoenix. This collaboration was supported by British Council through their Connections through Culture grants.
Angkasa
Angkasa likes to draw kind-hearted creatures. As an artist with autism, Angkasa enjoys exploring various mediums for his artwork. Angkasa has been creating art since 2017 when he joined an art therapy institution. In 2018, Angkasa was involved in his first collective art exhibition in the capital city of Jakarta. The works he presented were a collection of homages to famous paintings that he painted with acrylic on canvas.
In the following years, Angkasa's works were actively involved in collective exhibitions with Tab Space, including the Indonesian Contemporary Art and Design 12 (2022), Lets Be Friends at Jabar Art Space IKEA Kota Baru Parahyangan (2022), and Open in New Tab: Selasar Sunaryo at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space (2023).
Photograph credit Tab Space
Richard Phoenix
Richard Phoenix is an artist working in London and the South East whose practice involves painting, drawing, writing, music and learning about how these things support people to be together.
Recent projects include a solo exhibition at Flatland Projects, group shows at the Walker Gallery, Liverpool (shortlisted for John Moore’s Painting Prize) and Exeter Phoenix Gallery (prize winner in the Exeter Contemporary Open), publishing the full length work of non-fiction 'Do Your Own Thing’ through Rough Trade Books, facilitating projects and giving talks at Towner Gallery, South London Gallery, Cubitt Gallery, Studio Voltaire, London College of Communication and Goldsmiths. He was an artist-in-residence within Tate’s Schools and Teachers department, was part of the Conditions Studio Programme in Croydon and published the pamphlet 'D.I.Y. as Privilege: A Manifesto' with Rough Trade Books in 2020. He has worked with learning disability arts organisations and individual artists and musicians since 2006 as a facilitator, collaborator and project co-ordinator and has been Associate Artist for Heart n Soul since 2015.
Photograph credit Robin Christian
ARTWORK BEFORE THE COLLABORATION
Click on each image below for a larger view of each artist’s work before the collaboration. Caption details appear when you hover over the works.
Over several Zoom sessions, each artist got to learn more about the other artist, but most importantly they created alongside one another, albeit via the screen! The beginning of the sessions involved looking at works created over the past couple of weeks, then something new was devised to be made during the session that again would continue for the next couple of weeks after, in their studios. Each session Angkasa and Richard (also known as Lichang to Angkasa) took it in turns to select the music they would listen to during each session, with Angkasa’s firm favourite returning time and again - Vierra with ‘Bersamamu’. A very beautiful piano song with vocals. Read on to find out more about this collaboration and the theme they chose to work within.
The Zoom image appearing here shows, from top left clockwise: Richard, Jennifer from Art et al., and Angkasa with his mother.
THE BEGINNING
Each session provided us with many laughs, but none more so than the introductory session where the Tab Space staff said to Richard, “Your hair looks like John Lennon’s,” and from this point on, we laughed during every session! Angkasa is a man of few words, but he has definite favourite things that he likes to talk about and that is: parties, presents, food (mie goreng which is noodles in particular) and animals, especially cats as his family has four of them. He likes drawing portraits of people and rather quickly set to work drawing a portrait of Richard, and Jennifer from Art et al., whilst we were chatting. His mother explained his passions more clearly and Tab Space shared how his work has been used in different graphic campaigns and exhibitions across recent years. We knew when Angkasa liked something as he did a two handed symbol - meaning he liked it very much! See the photo below for evidence of this.
Here are the various portraits that they created early on during the collaboration.
Richard Phoenix, HEAD (Angkasa), 2024, Oil, acrylic, charcoal on linen, 20x25cm
Richard by Angkasa
Jennifer by Angkasa
THE THEMES
After hearing about Angkasa’s passions, Richard quickly came up with a list that they agreed to focus on: food, music and celebrations, like a birthday party.
Richard posed some questions:
who would we invite?
what would we eat?
where would it be?
how would we decorate the venue?
would there be music and dancing?
Angkasa listed that he would invite 18 guests to his birthday party ‘ulang tahun’ and Richard listed 20 guests, with both including family members and close friends. Richard would even get ‘Electric Fire’ to play, who are a band he supports through Heart n’ Soul in London. Other than balloons, Angkasa didn’t want much decoration to feature, but food would play a big part. The focus on the second session was a lot around food: chocolate cake and red velvet cake, chips, pizza, burger, omlette, fried chicken, mie goreng of course… with Richard adding in more healthy options like tomatoes, carrot sticks and humous. Angkasa doesn’t like fruit, but a banana did made an appearance! Here are a selection of cakes from Angkasa just on A4 paper in black Sharpie pen – we are getting hungry just looking at them!
WORKING IN BIG SCALE
They both decided they would create the biggest artworks they have ever created, so that the whole party scene could be set across one piece! And both artists worked on these during the Zoom calls, so things were unfolding before our eyes. Angkasa worked on a very large piece of thin canvas, layering up his image. He first used bright red to draw the outline of people attending, a rich purple for food outlines and a zingy yellow for outlines of the gifts he would like to receive - like headphones and a Nintendo Switch. Richard cut a very large piece of loose thick canvas, which he felt would be a challenge but ploughed on anyway. After gessoing the canvas, he drew on his image with black charcoal and painted in pastel colours throughout to pick out details such as a watermelon, a jug and a banana. Angkasa was very observant… so when Richard’s banana appeared, a banana appeared on his, and the same with musical notes and simple flowers. What we loved throughout this process is learning Indonesian words for things, with Richard featuring these in his work…
Chiki balls – snakck balls (in particular Angkasa likes the chocolate ones!)
Semangka – watermelon
Ulang tahun – birthday
Enak – delicious
Kucing – cat
A short video clip of Richard and Angkasa drawing together, with a song Angkasa chose playing.
Angkasa, Ulang Tahun Scene on canvas, Mixed media, 430x90cm. Click on the image to make it bigger
Richard Phoenix, ULANG TAHUN, 2024, Oil, acrylic, charcoal on canvas, 280x150cm. Click on the image to make it bigger.
Details of Richard’s ULANG TAHUN
Details of Richard’s ULANG TAHUN
CUT-OUTS
Once the largest works were complete, the artists spoke about cut-outs, the materials that could be used for these, and what they could feature. These went in different directions for each artist, again both inspiring each other with the things being drawn and painted. Angkasa worked on large sheets of cardboard to cut-out not just people but other things for his party, including many of the objects on his long drawing, not forgetting the cake! He cut a table out to place these on, alongside large cut-outs of Richard and Jennifer, but also James Lambert and Lisa Slominski who were involved in the other peer to peer collaboration with the studio at the same time. What an honour for us all! Richard used a jig-saw to cut out, sand and prime different objects like fruit, glasses and flowers… again things that featured in his large canvas. We laughed when Richard started eating a banana and before we knew it, Angkasa had drawn and was cutting out his own banana to feature.
Angkasa, Ulang Tahun Scene in cardboard, 280x115cm
Richard by Angkasa
Jennifer by Angkasa
Richard’s wooden cut-outs feature here. Click on each image to see the details.
ONE MORE WORK
We challenged Richard to make one final piece. In the past he has made large cut-out figures, but as this work needed to travel to Indonesia for an exhibition, it couldn’t be so large. He eventually cut-out a figure and then cut that figure into smaller pieces that could be bolted together on the back. This final figure was of a man sitting with a cat on his lap. This was very apt as Angkasa’s cats quite often made appearances on the Zoom call. We love the way Richard’s work was built up on layers, with the clearly defined charcoal being added in at the end. A lovely way to see the collaboration come full circle again!
Richard Phoenix, Wander them all night until morning (seated figure with cat), 2024, Oil, acrylic, charcoal on plywood, 122x108x1.8cm
Here are some Zoom stills of them creatively working during the sessions, whilst selected music was playing in the background.
FINAL THOUGHTS
We asked each artist a few questions about their collaboration together. What was your favourite part of the collaboration?
Angkasa said he liked painting with Richard as Richard also played music just like he did, so they could both do this together and have fun.
Richard said: Meeting online and sharing what we’ve been doing outside of the sessions has been my favourite thing. However I have really enjoyed how much it has pushed me personally, seeing how quick and effortless Angkasa’s process has been throughout was a good reminder to get stuck in and enjoy creating work. I’ve produced a surprising amount of work (for me), with some of it bigger and more complex than I have made before.
Can you describe the other person in just three words?
Angkasa on Richard: baik (kind), melukis (painting), musik (music).
Richard on Angkasa: Joyful, confident, generous.
Richard spoke of what he made during the collaboration: With all of them I didn’t want to over-think what I was making, being very responsive to what Angkasa was doing and letting things just naturally come out.
Richard on what he hopes audiences get from seeing his work? A moment.
As Angkasa is a man of few words, we asked his mother and support studio staff a couple of questions…
Has anything been a real surprise for you during the collaboration? It's a surprise for us that a long distance virtual art collaboration is possible, and that beautiful, unique art can be created in this way. In this project, Angkasa drew on a very large medium and it's something he did for the first time. We had a lot of exciting experiences while working on this project. We didn't expect that both Richard and Jennifer would be so friendly.
For others potentially doing the peer-to-peer collaborations in the future, what would be your advice to them? Just have fun while working on the project! :-)
With thanks to Tab Space staff and Angkasa’s family for supporting this collaboration.