ABOUT
Jompet started his artistic journey as a musician playing various kinds of music styles and forms, from alternative rock to industrial techno, from theatre music production to short movies scores to indie music recordings both individually and collectively. He founded bands like Bekicot, SKM and Diary Of The Lost between 1996- 1999, and an experimental sound project named Garden Of The Blind in 2000-2003.
In 1997 he saw a contemporary art exhibition for the first time during the Jogja Biennale event, he saw works of Heri Dono, S. Teddy, Ugo Untoro, Tony Voluntero and other established artists at the time. He was highly moved and was motivated to study contemporary art on his own since then.
From 1998 until the next 20 years, he has grown together with the theatre collective Teater Garasi, which has had a major influence on his artistic language. After completing his studies at the Faculty of Social and Political Science, Gadjah Mada University in 1999, and moved by the euphoria of Reformasi, he started his own art by incorporating sound, video, performance, and interactivity. The early Reformasi era also gave Jompet a strong impetus to explore new realities through the language of art.
Jompet has exhibited his works widely, including Solo exhibition at Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, 2014; Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, 2016 and MAC’s Grand Hornu, Belgium. As well as group exhibitions including Sun Shower, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2017; Sharjah Biennale 2019; Bangkok Art Biennale 2022. In 2014 he won an award from Prudential – Eye Award in Singapore in the installation art category.
His latest solo show, Dream Express: Personalized History of Mysticism, explores mysticism as enigmatic codes that save the clues of undocumented individuals encountering dominating power in the context of troubled Indonesian history spanning from colonialism to dictatorship. Through a wide range of mediums, this project struggles with the immateriality of memory to speculate any possible alternative history and alternative knowledge.