“PAYAU” and a New Phase in Iwan Yusuf’s Artistic Practice
EDSU house proudly presents PAYAU, the latest solo exhibition by artist Iwan Yusuf, on view until 1 February 2026 at the EDSU house gallery on Jalan Kaliurang, Sleman. The exhibition marks a new phase in Iwan’s two-decade artistic journey, showcasing his most recent explorations using discarded tiger trawl fishing nets, which he transforms into site-specific installations within the gallery space.
PAYAU stands as the culmination of twenty years of Iwan’s experimentation, ranging from hyperrealist painting and sculpture to land art, ultimately converging in the net-based visual language he continues to develop today. This exhibition does not merely present nets as installation objects, but positions them as transitional sites and zones of tension: between sea and land, between their original function in fishing communities and their new role within the gallery context.
The title PAYAU refers to a brackish zone, where freshwater and saltwater intersect. This metaphor is translated into Iwan’s gesture of relocating the nets from their original environment into EDSU’s white cube. Within the gallery, the medium undergoes a shift in meaning. The tiger trawl nets are no longer functional tools, but visual structures suspended between two and three dimensions.
Through a process that begins with charcoal drawings on paper and is later reassembled at a larger scale, Iwan pursues a tension between flatness and space. The resulting works generate visual illusions: from a distance, they appear flat and attached to the wall, yet upon closer inspection, the forms seem spatial and in motion, creating an ambiguous impression between image and installation. Like the brackish taste itself, these works occupy an in-between state, neither fully painting nor fully object.
PAYAU also responds to a condition in contemporary art that often oscillates between two extremes. On one end is “bland” painting–overly neat, aesthetic, and safe; on the other is “salty” installation–tending toward the theatrical and spatial domination. In this exhibition, Iwan deliberately chooses the in-between territory. A threshold that challenges perception and invites viewers to reconsider what they are actually seeing.
In PAYAU, the viewer’s experience takes center stage. Iwan’s works are not merely to be seen, but confronted, as if they move, bend, draw closer, or recede. PAYAU offers a new field of observation in which Iwan’s nets appear almost as physical objects, presenting a visual experience that stands between image and installation.
