Mantra Ardhana

Mantra was born on 22 August 1971 on the Indonesian island of Lombok. He is of Balinese Hindu descent and an active painter and musician. In a very young age he was struck by polio and since then he depends on a wheel chair. Mantra’s determination and willpower alone made him the outstanding talent he now is. In 1989 he visited the Fine Arts High School in Batubulan, Bali for 4 years and was then accepted by the prestigious Indonesian Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta. He graduated in 1999 with a BA in Fine Arts. After graduation he returned to his home island Lombok to implement this beautiful and colourful island comprised of enormous richness in traditional elements, into his art forms. He then started to experiment with different concepts creating music combined with visual art using his own perspective. Mantra’s art and music reflect a tingly dosage of the ethnic identity of Lombok, which he infuses into the contemporary and ever changing accents of our lives like technological advancement and multiculturalism. Regarding his paintings, Mantra says: “I have been consciously searching for some principles in my artistic life. The search has been among abstract issues manifesting themselves as spontaneous symbols resulting from the mind so severely repressed by automatism. They generally bring forth the language of the body by reflex, as I have myself experienced it.” Among the symptoms of automatism are the dream world; a term ordinarily associated by some people with communication between the unconscious and the psyche and last but not least the “language of the body”.