Kelvin Atmadibrata (London, UK): Chikorita

Chikorita, based on the Pokémon with Pokédex index #152 is a study of evolution. A short performance meant for camera presents the artist’s hand with a leaf clipped in between his fingers and bites a portion of it off. Chikorita is an unusual format for artist who works with repetitive and long durational works and who also still struggles to position his practice into the relevance of digital platform. Hence beyond the societal or conceptual direction behind the action, Chikorita is an attempt to explore the extension of liveness and performance practice.

Kelvin Atmadibrata (b.1988, Jakarta, Indonesia) recruits superpowers awakened by puberty and adolescent fantasy. Equipped by shōnen characters, kōhai hierarchy and macho ero-kawaii, he often personifies power and strength into partially canon and fan fiction antiheroes to contest the masculine meta and erotica in Southeast Asia. He works primarily with performances, often accompanied by and translated into drawings, mixed media collages and objects compiled as installations. Approached as bricolages, Kelvin translates narratives and recreates personifications based on RPGs (Role-playing video games) theories and pop mythologies. As an expansion of his post graduate study, he is developing the language of queer abstraction and minimalist erotica in his illustration of the mecha and transhumanist fantasy. As an apprentice tattooist, he has also been experimenting on the process of image markings on skin as a continuation of his attraction to living sculptures, breathing mannequins and bodies as pedestals. ARTIST’S WEBSITE