Pesugihan

Originally from Cirebon, Haryadi Suadi is a well-known printmaker trained at the art training institution in Bandung where he studied printmtmaking under the tutelage of Mochtar Apin from the late 1950s until mid-1960s. Unlike the earliest generation of Bandung artists, such as Apin, Ahmad Sadali, and A.D. Pirous who worked closely with Western abstraction, Haryadi's prints engaged more closely with the works of Japanese printmaker, Shiko Munakata, and local languages of representation informed by Javanese and Cirebonese cultural and material tradition. Haryadi began studying and working with glass painting from early 1970s onward after his meeting with a Cirebonese glass painter named Rastika (1942-2014). From Rastika, Haryadi learned the technique of making glass painting and its sacred iconographies. Painted in 1983, "Pesugihan" shows depictions of curious and hybrid creatures - some even draw from demonic characters in Javanese shadow puppet theatre - in a 4x3 grid composition. The depictions of these creatures in each grid is accompanied by illegible calligraphy and Cirebonese forms of "wadasan" and "megamendung" - two typical Cirebonese motifs that connote the earth and rocks (wadasan) and the clouds or heavenly realm (megamendung).