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COVER STORY

The Incredible
Journey of

Indonesian Art

Profiles of a select group of
contemporary Indonesian artists
who have made their mark in the

international art world

Wedha Abdul Rashid
Pop art creator from Indonesia
If this is the first time you have come
across the bold, striking pop art effect “...growth of the by lines. He did this as the ability to see
of colours and geometric design that WPAP style has or recognise the person was less especially
graced the front cover of IndoConnect this reached the northern those who have reached 40 years old, so it
issue, then welcome to the world of WPAP hemisphere and has was difficult to draw a face in a realistic
and detailed manner. Wedha then tried
or Wedha’s Pop Art Portrait. using a more cubism style to illustrate. He
built up the faces with figures arranged in
The effect was made famous by one of been exposed to TV a mosaic of colours, broken up according
Indonesia’s leading illustrators, Wedha audiences around the to its facets. Not in the sense of cubism but
rather in a combination of different colors
Abdul Rashid, who hails from Pekalongan, world.” to depict the character of the person. He
Central Java. The 65-year old contemporary
continually developed this style so
artist used a standard off-the- that the faces can be recognized
clearly. In the end, he illustrated
shelf graphic design software the faces using straight lines and
sharp, vibrant contrasting fills,
Adobe Illustrator to create inspired by the cubist style, using

attention grabbing portraits of

famous people. Wedha worked

for the press industry since the

1970s, joining Hai Magazine true dimensions and a mosaic of
in 1977 illustrating well-known colours and later dubbed as WPAP.

figures ranging from politicians,

musicians, artists and even The results were astounding and his

fictional characters. work includes WPAPs of celebrities

Around 1990 to 1991, Wedha such as John Lenon, Mick Jagger,
The Beatles, Elvis and personages

illustrated the human face as Wedha as a subject of his own technique by another WPAP such as John F Kennedy, Indira
a collection of flat areas formed artist (Source: rizal-artwork.blogspot.sg) Gandhi, Fidel Castro and others.

4 IndoConnect | Vol 4 No 4 2016 | www.indoconnectsingapore.com