Cinanti, or Keni as she is more often called, is a young artist who skillfully use watercolor as her creative medium. Keni's choice of watercolor as a medium is an interesting one, because in addition to being quite “old fashioned”, watercolor is not a medium that one can easily master. The fact that Keni is one of our most prominent young artists shows her ability in using the old-fashioned watercolor within a contemporary art context. Keni has been an avid watercolor painter for a long time, she even used watercolor techniques to create her final project piece for the Visual Communication Design Program, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)—an odd choice of medium/technique for design students of today. Since becoming a design student, Keni has enjoyed creating with watercolors. Through watercolors, Keni illustrates the dreams, hopes, as well as commentary of the world around her. In short, painting with watercolors has become Keni's way of expression and communicating with her surroundings. Her relish in creating with watercolors has opened the path for Keni to enter into the world of contemporary art. After completing her design studies, Keni chose to become an artist. It seems that the design world, with its more exact and measurable parameters are seen as less suitable for Keni, who tends to talk and express in a more personal way.

However, Keni is not the type of artist who is limited to a medium she masters and likes. Keni understands that as a contemporary artist, there are many opportunities for her to explore various other media. Such explorations are evident since her second solo exhibition, showing object-based works in the form of miniature dioramas. And so, in her current show—her third solo exhibition—she is also presenting three-dimensional works. 

Keni's works are always easily recognizable, especially since the subject matter always shows the artist's Self alongside various animals. Keni's works also look like illustrations. In this exhibition, for instance, we see Keni “being mean” towards a dog, or “belittling” a miniature hippo. There are times when the animals in Keni's canvases come across as normal. Other times, they appear to make little sense and rather odd, especially in their size compared to the artist. It is not quite clear, whether Keni has become the giant, or that the animals are lilliputian in size instead. In her previous solo exhibition, Keni's canvases convey certain locations in Bandung, where the artist and the animals take part within them. However, Keni's works in this exhibition have returned to a familiar subject matter: just her Self and the animals. The images of public spaces or certain places have disappeared from Keni's canvases. In addition, as a departure, Keni's canvases are presented as segments of similar measurements, arranged to create an ordered painting configuration.

The simplicity of the subject matter in Keni's works makes them less easy to construe. However, as other art works in general—however simple their subject matter and appearance may be—there are always opportunities to read works in a variety of ways. It is possible that, for Keni personally, her works do not always have a set/exact meaning. As mentioned previously, Keni's past works often portray herself interacting with animals, not overly dissimilar from the works found in her current, third solo exhibition. However, the meaning that she would like to convey now seems far removed from her previous works. This shows that for Keni, the meaning of her works may undergo a shift through a diverse array and layers of meaning, from simple problems to those that are more complex, let's say, from fantasy to allegory.

In her daily life, Keni can get along very easily with animals, especially pets. Keni often says that it  is easier for her to “communicate” with animals. According to her, interacting as animals is not as “complicated” as communicating with humans. The latter always require language—with accepted meanings—which could also hinder communication. Keni actually views that the former type of interaction, communication that transcends language, as “universal” communication. Keni's views have more or less shown that her works began with her evaluation and attitudes towards the human “environment”, including the various obstacles in human communication. In this way, the presence of “animals” and the absence of “humans” (other than the artist herself), can become an important construction of meaning. Keni's paintings become allegorical, when the interactions between Keni and the animals serve as an imagining of Keni's “reluctance” to interact in the human world. This kind of reading does not mean that Keni is an anti-social individual. The works in the context of this exhibition is actually related to the Keni's attitudes and her way of reading the situation of the contemporary art scene. In other words, her target social environment is a narrow one, i.e. the area of contemporary art production and consumption. Through her reading of these situations, we arrive at the title of this exhibition, Postprandial Somnolence.

At a fleeting glance, Keni seems to be an artist preoccupied with her own world, but in reality, Keni is a keen observer of the world around her. The years of her involvement in the art scene has led Keni to understand that art [activities] are not just a question of creating that is [directly] connected to an artist's esoteric sphere. The world of contemporary art is also a world with replete with political aspects. The question of career, success, and rewards are often more connected to the strategic/political aspects of art, compared to the creative aspects or its aesthetic questions—like attaching the Self to the mainstream network, self-promotions, career strategies, etc. Keni's creative methods, which are more esoteric—she spends many hours every day painting, using the watercolor technique that requires a high degree of concentration—cause her to perceive the external aspects of art as rather odd. However, like it or not, directly or indirectly, Keni is aware that her existence cannot be detached from these aspects. Postprandial Somnolence, or better known through its more popular jargon “food coma”, more or less reflects Keni's current thoughts and feelings at the situation of the contemporary art scene.

Literally, postprandial somnolence means a condition of fatigue/lassitude and drowsiness after a full, big meal so much so that the person is unable to do anything. This condition happens when someone over-indulged in food. Through her works, Keni tries to imagine the situations in the art sphere as a condition of postprandial somnolence. After being further involved in the vortex of art consumption and production, Keni realizes that the motives and politics behind them tend to become more crucial.  As previously mentioned, she is unable to avoid such situations, and has become part of those who consume the system within. As a result, Keni feels herself experiencing “food coma”. In this context, Keni's “communication” and interaction with the animal (world) can be seen as an escape from the art's social environment, like an antidote. As such, the animal images in Keni's paintings refer to a real animal world, not fable. On the contrary, Keni seems to want to enter and become part of the animal world. This is also evident in Keni's three-dimensional work that resemble animal trophies, like the heads of big game animals we often see displayed on the wall of a house. This particular work reflects Keni's “wonderment” of the art world. According to Keni, she still finds herself often “baffled” by the oft-excessive “trophies” (i.e. awards) bestowed on an art work, accolades that are often discoursed, which are usually not more than commodities or display pieces. 

The grid-like arrangements of the canvases have become an important aspect of Keni's paintings. Each canvas shows a fragmented image. Visually, the arrangement of each painting looks like a view outside a many-framed window. This imaginary window underlines the divide between the person standing inside (the audience) and Keni who is outside the window. The configurations of the canvases also come across as puzzles arranged in the proper way. When scrutinized, the compilation of Keni's works within the exhibition space can be seen as a unified spatial [site-specific] installation design. In addition to the “painting windows”, there is a fur carpet complete with the animal's head. Alongside and as spatial “decorations” are three Keni-heads wearing animal hats presented a la animal trophies. Not to be missed is the configuration of dozens of picture frames placed in a corner of the room, some even spilling off the walls onto the floor.

Keni's works in Postprandial Somnolence can be described as an indirect critique aimed at the mechanism of production and consumption within the contemporary art world. Of course, for Keni personally, this exhibition serves as a self-criticism (that she has already become part of the world she criticizes). However, and more importantly, these works are, for Keni, an act of “disconnecting” herself from the anxiety she recently feels about the mechanisms at play in the art world.

Finally, we can say that Postprandial Somnolence exhibition reflects an important phase for Keni in going through her “naive” artistic period. The works exhibited here are signs of the artist's transition towards maturity, to be able to see various situations and indications in the contemporary art field with more “wisdom”.  Despite being worked on intensely over a [relatively] short span of time, the preparation of works for this exhibition can actually be seen as a “rest period” following an exhaustive digestion—within a short time—of so many “information” and problems found within the world of contemporary art. It can be said that the whole creative process for Postprandial Somnolence is a cathartic action for Keni, a way for her to become fresh once again to create new works. This does not mean that works within Postprandial Somnolence are weak or problematic. Instead, these works seem to have a certain strength, because they were conceived in a depressive and oppressive situation. The presence of these works becomes proof of Keni's success in overcoming her skeptical view of the art world.

Asmudjo J Irianto