Ketut Budiana was born in 1950 in Padang Tegal, a village near Ubud. He apprenticed in the traditional arts under his father, the latter a sculptor, painter and architect who was responsible for the Fa?ade of the Pura Dalem (temple of the dead) in his village. Budiana later trained at the Indonesian College of Fine Arts and the Teachers' Vocational Secondary School in Denpasar. He also briefly studied with Rudolf Bonnet in 1974.

In Budiana we find an artist in the mould of Nyoman Lempad. Like Lempad, Budiana extends himself in individual art practice and community participation as a painter, sculptor, architect (undagi), a dancer in the classical tradition, and a maker of ritual paraphernalia. Budiana is also locally regarded as an authority on Balinese Hindu mysticism and cosmology. And like Lempad, Budiana's art defies stylistic categories in Balinese painting.

As a painter, Budiana is regarded as something of a mystic savant. Verging on elaborate fantasies and hellish nightmares, his paintings appear like a seer's vision into the supernatural realm of gods, frightful demons and strange creations. As unworldly as they may appear, his visions are rooted in Balinese mystic beliefs and philosophy and are intended to communicate and elucidate religious and moral wisdom.

Had Budiana's paintings been mere interpretations of Balinese beliefs, he would be unlike any other contemporary painters who, following a long line of Balinese painters, have tapped into mystic and folk lore ad nauseam and resorted to stylistic mannerisms. Instead Budiana conjures imageries that, albeit duly observing iconographical forms, suggest religious and moral wisdom, and make inventive takes in stylistic and formal effects.

Of note on Budiana's style is the attention he pays to creating atmospheric effects. Vapours of arabesque energy ripple, swirl and cascade with eerie life force, effectively invoking imageries of supernatural realms. Often these abstract forms occupy a great extent of the pictorial surface, enveloping and partially veiling the figures in the painting. In Conflagration, the animated Hanuman, the episode's hero, is positioned off centre to give surface space to the consuming fires that provide the high drama in the painting with tongues of vivid flames and flurries of ashen soot.

Budiana's art is not without humour. From time to time we witness comedy and playfulness, although these too are often allegorical and insightful of human nature. Examples of such instances are Fishing and Love in the exhibition.

Since the mid-1970s, Budiana has consistently had exhibitions of his paintings in Indonesia and overseas. His work has been shown by the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and his solo exhibitions include the Ogoh-Ogoh Project in Seatle (1995) and Barcelona (1998). Budiana's most recent solo exhibition was held in 2003 at the Tokyo Station Gallery. His paintings are in the collections of the Tropenmuseum, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Museum Puri Lukisan, Neka Art Museum, Agung Rai Museum, Museum Rudana, and the Art Center in Bali.

Exhibition Biography:

• 2005 Bali in Bali, Sunjin Galleries, Singapore
• 2000 Solo exhibition, Agung Rai Museum of Art, Ubud, Bali
• 2000 Solo exhibition, Spain
• 2000 Solo exhibition, Australia
• 1998 Ogoh-Ogoh Project, Spain
• 1997 Indonesia-Japan Friendship Festival, Japan