A Hundred Ways to Appetite

ara contemporary is delighted to share the installation view of Natalie Sasi Organ and Irfan Hendrian's work for the exhibition A Hundred Ways to Appetite, curated by Tan Siuli at Appetite Singapore.

Natalie Sasi Organ's featured series interrogates the paradox of Bangkok's Methavalai Sorndaeng restaurant, which opened in 1957. Once celebrated during a time when Westernised opulence symbolised progress, the restaurant is now trapped in a performative time loop, perpetuating an aesthetic rooted in a colonial past. Sasi Organ's works draw on the restaurant's décor to reveal how an emphasis on aesthetics can come at the expense of authentic identity, reinforcing outdated ideals of power.

Irfan Hendrian's artistic practice centers around paper as the primary medium in his works. By challenging the medium's inherent nature as a two-dimensional surface, Hendrian uses paper both as the medium and as pigments, emphasizing its sculptural possibilities. His latest work continues his exploration of paper's formal qualities and its sculptural potential. Drawing on his experience as both an artist and industrial printmaker, Hendrian often incorporates leftover materials from the bookbinding studio where he works. In this context, paper is treated not just as a medium, but as an entity in itself, harnessed for its formal properties of texture, line, color, and shape.