Gajah Gallery Presents Before Meanings

Gajah Gallery Jakarta presents Before Meanings, a solo exhibition by Yogyakarta-based artist Ridho Rizki. Featuring a new body of paintings made using Ridho’s meticulous airbrushing technique, the exhibition explores the idea of perception and how meaning develops through the act of looking.

Ridho began developing this approach in the late 2010s through his engagement with photography. Using photographs he takes of his surroundings as references, he reconstructs the images from memory, separating them into layers of cyan, magenta, yellow, and monochromatic tones before applying pigment to canvas as minute particles. From close range, the individual particles remain visible; viewed from a distance, they merge to form recognisable images— flowers, landscapes, and everyday objects.

While Ridho’s work shares an affinity with Impressionism’s interest in light and perception, his approach is distinctly contemporary. By allowing the construction of each image to remain visible, his paintings move between recognition and materiality, asking viewers to look more closely at how an image takes shape and how meaning begins to form.