ABOUT SHURI

My name is Shuri. I’m an Indonesian visual artist based in Jakarta, working primarily in acrylics and mixed media on paper. I’m self-taught — no formal art school, no degree. Just years of paying attention to what happens when I let emotion move through my hands onto a surface. 
I explore emotions that live beneath the surface, the stories that never quite found the right words.

My work moves between surreal figuration and symbolic abstraction, drawn to the tension between what is felt and what is shown. I am interested in the inner landscapes we inhabit quietly — the parts of ourselves that are present but unreachable, visible but not fully seen.

Growing up in Jakarta, I am constantly surrounded by the collision between the traditional and the modern, between collective identity and private experience. That tension lives in my paintings. Figures wear their culture like both armor and confession. Emotions become landscapes. Solitude becomes a vast, open sea.

I work primarily with acrylic on canvas and paper, allowing the process to be spontaneous and intuitive — letting color and form find their own truth before I direct them. Each piece begins with a feeling I cannot yet name, and ends when that feeling finally has somewhere to live.

I paint emotions and untold stories.