BESTA BESTRIZAL (Indonesian, B. 1973)

Ever since emerging onto the Indonesian contemporary art scene a few years ago, Besta Bestrizal has quickly captured the imagination of viewers who see in his cyborg protagonists a productive engagement between humanity, science and art. The artist's realistic and detailed rendering of details with charcoal affirms Bestrizal's place as one of the best emerging contemporary Indonesian figurative painter.

Total Freedom (Lot 581) presents an ironic visual idiom of a tied up protagonist. The protagonist, Bestrizal's half-boy, half-cyborg with seeming superhero qualities, is bounded up but there is a sense of recovery and a better day implied in the title. Through his paintings, Bestrizal delivers an idealised message of hope.