Born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Eko Nugroho (1977) is a young Indonesian artist fast gaining recognition at home as well as abroad. Nugroho's visual language draws on his familiarity with traditional wayang kulit puppets and characters, and the cartoons and comic books that populated his childhood. He works across disciplines, from murals and paintings to drawings, book projects, animation, and most recently with large-scale embroideries. Nugroho is also the creative force behind a popular zine called 'Daging Tumbuh'. Through his signature characters of part-man part-machine creatures, Nugroho often voices his concerns of the society he lives in through surrealistic and subtle narratives. These large-scale embroideries are inspired by the embroidery on leather jackets of the gangs in Indonesia. Working with a community of artisans, Nugroho completed several embroidery works, including, 'Illusion' here. In this work, Nugroho focuses on his concerns of the deteriorating state of environment, represented by the chimney, a frequently used motif in his other works, which symbolizes "the language of industry, factory, work, pollution and chaos", in the artist's own words.
