Diyan Achjadi: Carried Through the Water

A professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Diyan Achjadi is a printmaker, illustrator and animator who creates print, installation and video work. Recipient of a 2021 VIVA Award, the $15,000 prize awarded to extraordinary mid-career BC artists, Diyan explores contemporary issues, from queer identity to the impacts of post-colonial migration on culturally traditional patterns and images. Because she moved as a child, from her birthplace in Jakarta, Indonesia, to London, UK, and later to New York City, Achjadi has developed what she describes as an interest in “different perceptions of the world.”

“I am invested in working with my hand through drawing or printmaking, and making that handmade mark and process more visible,” Diyan writes. “I often start with a response to a story, a gesture, or an image, and I rarely know what the end result of the work will be. I come to the work with hope that the curiosity that propels my work, the evidence of the investment of time and labour, and open-endedness of my approach allows for multiple points of entry for someone encountering my work; that even if my specific references are not familiar to someone, the combination of images, patterns, marks, forms, titles, invite curiosity, questions, and engagement.”

In this solo show at the Nanaimo Art Gallery, Achjadi will be exhibiting new and current works of ink and gouache on paper alongside Hush, an animated series of small-scale watercolour and ink drawings made during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. This series was originally commissioned for the City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program and was shown on Emily Carr University’s Urban Screen during the spring and summer of 2021.

Opening reception April 22, 7-9pm

nanaimoartgallery.ca