NEW YORK, NY- Paul Kasmin Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in the United States of the celebrated Indonesian painter, Nyoman Masriadi. On view at the gallery’s 293 Tenth Avenue space, this is Masriadi’s first large-scale exhibition since his 2008 survey show at the Singapore Art Museum.

Masriadi’s paintings frequently depict superhuman figures whose narratives, while rooted in Indonesian cultural history, offer witty and often biting social commentary on contemporary life and global pop culture. Through his expert control of light, shadow and volume, Masriadi endows these monumental characters with a sculptural, almost three-dimensional presence. Sometimes these characters appear in the archetypal roles of comic book heroes, cowboys, soldiers and athletes, but just as frequently, they are simply powerfully built men and women engaged in solitary acts of strength or captured in private moments of vulnerability.

Nyoman Masriadi was born in Gianyar, Bali in 1973 and studied at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Black is My Last Weapon, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2008); Jogja Biennale X, Jogjakarta, Indonesia (2009) and The Simple Art of Parody, Taipei MOCA, China (2009). He is the subject of a major new monograph, Nyoman Masriadi: Reconfiguring the Body, with an essay by the art historian T.K. Sabapathy.