Born in 1938 in Grobogan, Purwodadi, central Java, Djoko Pekik is an art student at the Akademie Seni Rupa Indonesia in Yogyakarta. Pekik's paintings are seen by some as reminiscent of social realism in the Yogyakarta art scene before it became taboo after the failed communist coup of October 1965.Here, Pekik depicts a kuda kepang (literally, bamboo horse) a traditional street performance. With a sense of pathos, the bitterness of the performers' lives is perhaps most poignantly represented in the person of the entranced performer in the foreground. Like an animal oil fours, he feeds on a fragment of glass, all act of self-violence that is both attention-grabbing and abhorrent while the singer nurses her baby - a reminder of the person behind the performer, although perhaps significantly, the expression painted on her mask is one of melancholy and hopelessness.
