RANGGA APUTRA

Viewing Room 

featuring a selection of works

on view from 15.10.2026

at 

Primo Marella Gallery LUGANO

EXHIBITION SPACE 1

Via Lucchini 10, 6900 Lugano, CH

Primo Marella Gallery Lugano is pleased to present a Viewing Room dedicated to a selection of works by Rangga Aputra, exploring the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, on view in the Exhibition Space 1 from October 15, 2026.

Bringing together paintings from 2023 to 2025, the presentation traces the development of the Indonesian artist’s distinctive visual language and his ongoing investigation into the relationship between the natural world, sensory experience, and artistic expression. Through an intricate interplay of colour, texture, and painterly gestures, Aputra constructs intricate compositions in which organic motifs and fragments of everyday life emerge from richly worked canvases. His approach is rooted in a painstaking process of layering and revision, employing oil and acrylic paint, structuring gel, and linen to achieve pronounced tactility and a compelling sense of dimensionality. 

The works from 2023 lay the groundwork for this evolving practice. Irregular lines, intersecting shapes, and fluctuating chromatic fields reflect the artist’s interest in memory, light, and the mechanisms of visual perception.

In Amnesia & Memory (2023), this inquiry takes shape through a layered arrangement of marks and shifting forms that evokes the fragile relationship between recollection and oblivion.Images appear to surface and dissolve, suggesting how memories are continually reconstructed rather than preserved as fixed impressions. 

This tension between presence and disappearance establishes a dialogue between structure and disorder that remains central to Aputra’s subsequent production.

In the 2024 series, his pictorial vocabulary becomes increasingly vibrant, incorporating references to tropical flora and the lushness of the Southeast Asian landscape. Prompted by an optical experience in which forms appeared to shift under changing light conditions, Aputra embraces fleeting impressions as catalysts for the creative process. Leaves, slender stems, and intertwining botanical elements gradually take shape among spontaneous brushstrokes and abstract markings. Rather than depicting the environment directly, these compositions distil its chromatic intensity and organic rhythms into fluid, elusive configurations.  

The 2025 paintings extend this research through a more pronounced focus on material density and the accumulation of pigment. In Cosmic Intelligence (2025), organic structures and abstract configurations converge in a composition that suggests an underlying order within apparent complexity. Colour, texture, and gestural marks create a dynamic balance between intuitive expression and deliberate construction. Fragments of landscapes, natural elements, and familiar objects intermittently surface through successive layers of paint before being partially obscured or absorbed into the surrounding composition.