Contemporary art has long challenged the notion that a painting is simply an image contained within a rectangle. Today, artists are increasingly interested not only in what a work represents, but also in how it comes into being through its material, structure, and physical presence. In Beyond the Frame, the surface of a painting is no longer treated as a passive support, but as an active element in shaping meaning. Here, the boundaries between image, object, and medium become increasingly fluid.

Bringing together the works of Gandari Irianti, Rafli Piu, and Wira Liandy, this exhibition explores how each artist reconsiders the conventions of their chosen medium. Although their approaches differ, they share a refusal to accept inherited forms as fixed. Canvas, board, and constructed surfaces are stretched, layered, carved, assembled, and reshaped until they become inseparable from the ideas they carry.

For Wira Liandy, the transformation of the canvas reflects the psychological landscapes that underpin his practice. The irregular silhouettes of his paintings move beyond the conventional rectangle, echoing identities continuously shaped by defense mechanisms, expectations, and lived experience. Form becomes an extension of the body—something worn, inhabited, and constantly evolving.

 

 

In Gandari Irianti’s practice, painting unfolds into quiet architectural spaces. Through carefully layered PVC boards, she constructs intimate environments that exist somewhere between memory and imagination. The physical depth of each work becomes a metaphor for the emotional layers of home, inviting viewers to navigate spaces where personal histories and inner landscapes gently intersect.

 

 

Meanwhile, Rafli Piu begins with the square as the archetypal form of painting, only to disrupt its familiarity through cuts, extensions, and reconstructed shapes. Drawing on the logic of character design, he transforms the canvas into an object with its own identity while retaining traces of its original form. By treating paint, canvas, and stretcher as elements with distinct roles, Rafli blurs the boundaries between painting, object, and commodity. In doing so, he reflects on how artworks circulate, acquire value, and are consumed within contemporary visual culture.

 

What brings these three practices together is not simply a desire to experiment, but a shared belief that material choices always carry meaning. Every altered edge, layered surface, and reconstructed form becomes part of the visual language each artist develops. Here, innovation is not merely an aesthetic pursuit, but a way of thinking—one that opens space for personal, spatial, and cultural narratives to emerge through the transformation of familiar materials.

Rather than inviting viewers to look only at the image on the surface, Beyond the Frame encourages us to encounter painting as an object in itself—through its contours, its construction, and its willingness to move beyond the boundaries we have long taken for granted. Ultimately, the exhibition reminds us that meaning does not reside solely in representation. Sometimes, it is the medium itself that tells the story.