Weekend Portfolio: Leonard Suryajaya
Images and text by Leonard Suryajaya
Quarantine Blues traces my experience of the last year, following the horror of Covid-19 pandemic, global socio-cultural upheaval, and the uptick of violence towards Asian minorities in America. Being forced into isolation after my immigration status was approved to stay in the country, I came to realize that individual and social hardships do not exist in isolation. I had no other choice but to gather the courage and energy to seek out a more positive outlook of the current time.
Suffering is not my goal. I attempt to make this less-than-conducive time and environment more hospitable. I create images that supply alternative views of our current time that are unseen by the news media. Employing humble everyday objects and subjects, I make fantastical rendering of the uncertainties and the unknown. I use humor as a guide and I seek to find solace in all of the chaos.
The work is divided into three parts, the first made in my old apartment with my partner during lockdown, the second a collaboration with my neighborhood gym community in Printer’s Row, Chicago, and third self-portraits and still life images in my new home. This project allows me to face unprocessed traumas that I carried as a queer millennial Chinese Indonesian immigrant to America, as well as the horror of the current time. If this is the way I die, I want it known that I persisted throughout all my challenges and am still able to produce beauty using my knowledge and resilience to communicate my humanity.
Leonard Suryajaya (Chicago, IL) uses his work to test the boundaries of intimacy, community and family. He uses photography, video, performance and installation to show how the everyday is layered with histories, meanings and potential.
BFA, 2013, California State University, Fullerton; MFA, 2015, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; 2017, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Selected exhibition venues include Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago; Benaki Museum, Greece; Photoforum Pasquart, Switzerland; National Library, Singapore; Wrightwood 659, Chicago; Aperture Gallery, NY; Barney Savage Gallery, NYC; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago. His work is included in collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Block Museum, Vontobel Art Collection, Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection, Mana Contemporary and Center for Photography at Woodstock. Awards: Aaron Siskind Foundation Award, Artadia Awards, Robert Giard Foundation Fellowship, CENTER Excellence in Multimedia Award, New Artist Society Award, James Weinstein Memorial Fellowship, Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Prize for Emerging Artist, The Santo Foundation Fellowship.
More of Leonard Suryajaya’s work can be found on his website
