Leonard Suryajaya, A Refreshing Take on Sophistication

Wrestling trauma through “Dream Vessels,” aka photographs.

 

by Anna Silverstein

April 1, 2021

Virtual Reality (2017)

Leonard Suryajaya is an artist who lacks concern for performative elitism, winning me over with his authenticity during a live Zoom talk he led at CSUF. Due to the level of sophistication of his work, I was surprised by his approachability and down-to-earth demeanor. Although Suryajaya considers himself a photographer, his process could be seen as theatrical performance. Suryajaya’s theatre background not only gives him set design skills, allowing him to create amazing installations and photographs, but also, his Zoom presentation was inadvertently a captivating and moving performance of its own. The talk was marked with refreshing candor, and relatable trauma “over-sharing”.

 

The juxtaposition of Suryajaya’s incriminating honesty with the hyper sophistication of his work is one of the artist’s many dichotomies. As an eternal outsider on a quest to fit in, this theme of dichotomy is fitting. His self-professed traumas are dark and numerous: body shaming, disordered eating, closeted homosexuality, racism as an Indo-Chinese immigrant in the U.S. He, nonetheless, transmutes this daunting list into a fantastical dream-like reality for the viewer.

 

Leo Exotic (2020)

 

This dream-like quality, beneath which lies themes of personal darkness, is  present in the bright, happy, tropical tone in Suryajaya’s work. Suryajaya uses his photographs as a cathartic process to explore alternate realities in which his pain is manageable, healed, and/or addressed, thus becoming “Dream Vessels” that share this shifted reality with the viewer. The overt, provocative content in his photos is used to showcase these traumas he has had to deal with internally, alone, and in secrecy: a gay man hiding his sexuality, a boyfriend thought to be a roommate, an interracial relationship, body dysmorphia, femininity, and more.

 

Good Neighbors (2018)

 

According to the artist, his work is developed within a dichotomy of what he calls “structural improvisation”, the idea that the work is made by pulling inspiration from Suryajaya’s feelings and experiences but creating the actual installation in a fluid way, once again harnessing his performance art tendencies. Suryajaya also reveals the dichotomy of weight, which is seen as a sign of wealth for a fat baby and  as a despicable trait for an adult. He flips trauma into a force of power and reframes the “Exotic,” which is no longer a fetishization of the outsider, but a beautiful and aspirational ideal.

 

Paper House (2018)

 

When I asked Suryajaya about his gallery representation, he responded that  he has yet to find the right place. Despite his high-quality work, Suryajaya remains consistent with rebellion and the provocative, not only throughout his work, but also in his personality and fundamental sense of being.