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Kondang Sugito

"My name is Kondang Sugito, born in Central Java 47 years ago. I grew up in Semarang as the second of four siblings. My mother is a teacher and my father is a lawyer. I grew up seeing people ask for my father's help to solve their legal problems. The country where I live in is based on justice, however justice is not always fair or equitable to some people. That fact in some way started a rebellion in me.

"In 1976, I headed to Yogyakarta seeking for a place of freedom. I chose formal studies in SMSR (a high school to learn fine art) and continued in an ISI, an art institution or university in the same city. Through art, I found the freedom to express the anger and dissatisfaction I was feeling regarding people failing to receive justice. Such anger and dissatisfaction was planted and grew in me, and later on became the basic theme of humanity in my sculptures.

"In 1991 I took a one year technology course on "Spray Metal" in Germany sponsored by a company in Jakarta, and received the Urkunde certificate from Hofman Mst GmbH. While I was in Germany, I participated in an art exhibition at Kotrijk, Belgium, along artist, Inge D'Wild.

"In 1993 I was honored to receive a commission to work on the Prima Harapan Regency gate in Bekasi, West Java. During 1995-2000 I established a studio and workshop, a place for me to keep creative. Then, I fell into an artistic vacuum that lasted almost five years, until I met an old friend who encouraged my spirit to work on art again. The reunion with this friend has changed my basic art style, which was realist humanism, and now has become abstract and symbolic."