Begok Oner

Begok Oner is the pseudonym of a graffiti artist. His street career began in 2017, since then he has been exploring various cities in Indonesia through tagging and paintings on walls (throw up & piece). He gives a second life to neglected spaces, not merely beautifying them. Traces of ruins are always full of visual narratives about the meaning behind the journey cycle. The changing of places, sites or cities is like a story about humans: birth, growth and decline that ends in collapse. Begok uses building ruins as a new 'canvas'. The texts and paintings on the stone ruins here seem to emphasize his position that ruins and ephemerality have their own beauty.

The work Yang Terbuang Menemukan Jalan Pulang Dengan Bentuk Terpampang (After Suwage and Tita Rubi) utilizes the ruins of the ARTJOG 2024 building facade that was demolished after the exhibition ended. Begok picked up the remains of the ruins, reconstructed a new 'wall' and gave it a second life/beauty. Fragments of text with reflective powder will be read again when visitors point their flash towards the work. Meanwhile, Riwayat Yang Tertimbun Dalam Pecahan (After Beteng Baluwarti) is a series of meticulous hyperrealistic paintings on the ruins of the Beteng Baluwarti wall, Yogyakarta. Last year, hundreds of houses, places of worship, and businesses around the fort were demolished to revitalize this important site. The historic fort marked the beginning of the Giyanti Agreement (1755) which divided the Mataram Kingdom into the Yogyakarta and Surakarta Sultanates. The fort's main function in the past was as a defense and boundary for the palace area.
Begok Oner was born in Cilacap, Central Java in 1998. He graduated from Fine Arts Education, Sebelas Maret University (UNS, Surakarta), 2020.