Drift State

Drift State situates the works of Imam Santoso and Jobert Cruz within the threshold between movement and stasis. Known for their dream-like scenes rendered in distinct visual languages, both artists in this collection suspend the flux of cultural and mental states through acts of introspective pause, where absurdity becomes a device for challenging collective and individual realities.

Based in Yogyakarta, Santoso’s surrealist tableaus draw from national identity, combining visual metaphors that evoke ideas, values, and symbols rooted in his historical milieu. Cultural motifs such as a traditional dwelling and a hornbill warrior’s headpiece are recast to suggest an oscillation between past and future, punctuated by moments of solitude that re-situate the individual within the rapid flow of historical progression. Through this temporal suspension, Santoso reflects on the trajectory of visual culture amid the pressures of modernity and technology.

Born and based in Tondo, Cruz adapts his distinct geometric and nostalgic visual vocabulary into scenes that similarly verge on surrealism. Architectural structures likewise figure prominently in his imagery. Yet while the thrust of Santoso’s works lies in the cultural, Cruz’s present collection unfolds as a mindscape. Salient are entries and openings, which act as portals facilitating passage between interiority and exteriority. Memory, emotion, and other internal sensibilities are projected onto this perceptual scaffold, where meaning is loosened from linear progression and liberated from the constraints of a single narrative.

Together, their works invite viewers to dwell within this suspended interval—where culture and individual consciousness are enjoined to flow, for all absurdities and realities.