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This painting is a scenery styled after a landscape that the artist chanced upon as he wandered to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea during his residency...
This painting is a scenery styled after a landscape that the artist chanced upon as he wandered to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea during his residency at the ACC Gwangju. He realized that these lush dense biodiverse forests are enchantingly beautiful but highly politicized and dangerous, guarded and littered with mines. Similar to the political standstill between North and South Korea, the politicization of the landscape created an unintended effect of preserving the pristine landscape. The forests have become frozen in time and untouched by mankind, allowing nature to take over and flourish in abundance. In these highly detailed paintings, where no effort, time and labour of the artist has been spared, this particular painting also sees a figure re-introduced after years of making canvases with only industrial landscapes, exploited landscapes, machinery without figures. The last characters were seen in Maryanto’s paintings in 2011 and represented his family, neighbours and friends. The character in the ghillie suit is hidden in camouflage as it advances between the borders of north and south, perhaps representing an intention as the artist departs from his usual subjects of deforestation, oil mining and land exploitation in oil fields, landscapes spoilt by touristic exploitation and urban development, to explore more overtly political landscapes. The identity of the figure is a mystery, and it is hard to determine whether it is friendly, aggressive or even human, much like the uncertain political landscape of Korea embodied by the DMZ.