Noviadi Angkasapura was born in 1979 in Jayapura, a coastal city on the Indonesian side of the island of New Guinea (Papua). Although he grew up in Papua, his family’s roots lie in Java — his mother is from Central Java, and his father is from East Java. Angkasapura lives in Java now. This mix of cultural backgrounds, combined with memories of Papua’s lush natural environment and deep cultural mix, profoundly influences his current work.
A life-changing moment came when Angkasapura was 24 years old. On the eve of his birthday, he experienced what he describes as a spiritual visitation — a supernatural being appeared to him, gave him the sacred words “Ki Raden Sastro Inggil”, telling him to live by two core virtues: honesty (jujur) and patience (sabar). From that day on drawing for him was no longer simply an act of creation — it became a spiritual duty, a way to communicate with the unseen world and to transmit its messages through his art to the world he is living in.
This polyglot of cultures and spiritualities lends a wide universe of meaning to his improvisatory imageries. In a sense his thinking is akin to the free-form ideas of Afro-futurism in that by finding a place of balance between past, present and future in his own cultures he creates a new sense of being, a new world. In almost every drawing we are given the cacophony of languages, the mix of man, beast and machine and most importantly the constant presence of spirit beings who hover, gesticulate and comment on human travails.
Working on found papers as a way of staying close to his own ideas of humble choices and in various inks, Angkasapura plays visual jazz on his drawings. He is prolific and yet never repeats himself. His sense of color is subtle and piercing, wide in its meaning but frugal in its selection. He is a storyteller who chants about traveling through the landscapes of dream.
Randall Morris, 11/7/25