Visual Artist for Vol. 130: Musical Chairs
Andro Pang
Indonesia
Andro Pang’s art frequently gestures at a world without humanity. His renderings of empty rooms populated by only shadows suggest a peaceful, post-apocalyptic reality where human life has been extinguished. In this way, the elegiac quality of his images is legible as a memorial for the near future, and a harbinger of inevitable destruction in a world beset by disasters both natural and manmade. Yet the mood of Pang’s work remains curiously detached, the vacant scenery offers a dreamlike sense of solitude. In his work for this volume, Pang brings a flair for both depth and fantasy–he is often characterized as a 3D artist, and he borrows visual language that will be familiar to many from the world of video games. His images gesture towards narratives that are both suggestive and surreal–the empty chair is a favored motif in his work, inviting the possibility of a scene that has been left unoccupied for a matter of minutes or perhaps for millenia.