I Made Arya Dwita Dedok

I Made Arya Dwita Dedok (Dedok) wears a broad, engaging smile--except when he’s translating.  During this month’s printmaking residency at the Studio Center, Dedok has been doing a lot of both.

A VSC Freeman Fellow from Bali, Dedok says his traditions are the breath for his life and power for his artwork.  His monoprint and blockprint images often borrow directly from Balinese symbols, particular the “Barong,” which appear as central, protective figures in his work.  Whether in the form of a pig, elephant or tiger and human, the barong are an expression of love, peace, interaction and positive thinking.

Making use of his time on VSC’s presses, Dedok’s figures now include some of the artists he has met here: a dancing and fiddling Peter Schumann and a serene and seated Joanne Greenberg among them. Everyday people are everywhere in his work, and the word “love” is often used explicitly as decorative background—even in depictions of what is typically more serious subject matter.   In an evocative print depicting soldiers carrying the coffin of a comrade in a funeral procession, a winged, dead soldier is strumming an instrument above it all.  Dedok says: “Many young men in Indonesia become career soldiers. When they die, they are happy.”

Born in the capitol city Denpasar, Dedok‘s father and mother encouraged him to pursue his art education, and he received a scholarship to attend the Indonesia Institute of Art in Yogyakarta, Java.  Many artists there have served as mentors for Dedok, including his artist wife, Grace Tjondronimpuno, who also received a Freeman Fellowship in 2007.

The Freeman Fellowship Program is in its 16th year of promoting artistic and cultural exchange at the Vermont Studio Center for artists from Japan, China, Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. 

Though it’s only the first month of his two-month VSC residency, Dedok’s time in Vermont has already been very productive.  The process is the same, he says, “Only here I can’t be lazy. I must get to work.”