Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, December 30, 2022: Sinta Tantra, a British emerging artist (#1739)

Sinta Tantra (1979) is a British artist of Balinese descent. She spent her childhood in Indonesia, America and the UK. Tantra’s practice is diverse, ranging from painted canvases, to site-specific sculptural interventions, to large-scale public artworks. She describes her work as 'painting on an architectural scale'. Colour is central to her practice, as a 'material which lies between the language of art and industry'. Her distinctive palette is inspired by her Balinese heritage and childhood holidays: 'I remember things through colour – especially the way in which colours vibrate against each other. I like the idea of ‘colour semiotics’ and the associations one has to particular colours in relationship to either brand or narrative.'

When Tantra was aged 6, the family relocated to the UK. Tantra has said, 'Like many first generation children whose parents migrated, I could never really identify with being from just one particular place. My work explores my identity and the layering of cultures specific to my own experiences. I am inspired by the colours of Bali, an English Heritage palette and 1980s pop Americana.' After completing a BTEC diploma in Fine Art at Middlesex University in 1999, Tantra took her BA at the Slade School of Fine Art from 2000 to 2003, under the tutor Andrew Stahl, head of Painting. It was here that she met the sculptor Nick Hornby, who she would go on to collaborate with in the future. During her studies, Tantra was introduced to the work of the conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), whose reduction of painting to a 'series of instructions or blueprints' she cites as a ‘huge’ and enduring influence on her practice. Like LeWitt, Tantra's work lies at the intersection between art and architecture, exceeding the confines of the canvas and of the gallery space. Likewise, Tantra cites the Indonesian painter Mochtar Apin (1923-1944) as an inspiration: 'In my work, there are specific elements inspired by Indonesian patterns. These patterns are reduced, distorted or enlarged to such a scale that the viewer becomes submerged in the decoration itself.'

After graduating, Tantra was accepted onto the Royal Academy Fine Art Masters Programme. Her studies were funded by a Paul Smith Postgraduate Scholarship. It was at the RA that Tantra's interest in large-scale artwork in the public realm began. She regards this as a reaction both to the stereotype of female work as modest or decorative. 'Even at art school, painting on canvas didn't really appeal to me- I was more interested in playing with architectural space, injecting colour, line, and form into new environments. Admittedly in the early days, there was also the desire to challenge the gender stereotype, that both men and women could make large scale works.' She describes the expectation of her lecturers and peers that she would create 'something cute and feminine, in small sizes' as fuelling her desire to ‘consistently create abstract and structured paintings’.

Tantra completed her MA in 2006, and that year was awarded the prestigious Deutsche Bank award. She began running a studio space for artists in the London Borough of Camden, organising workshops and community projects. Through her work she made contact with Camden Council, who commissioned her first public art piece, a mural stretching across Regents Park Bridge titled Isokon Dreams (2007). The work was praised by local councillor Flick Rea, who said 'The mural is fantastic. It really brightens the [Regents Park Road] bridge'.

Tantra's early work was composed of intricately cut vinyl and painted designs, featuring vibrant colours and geometric shapes. Her work remains recognisable for its distinctive use of colour and pattern: clean lines, geometric abstraction, a preoccupation with decorative symbols, and a bold and arresting choice of colours. Among her first commissions was a 2006 project for Transport For London’s Art on the Underground initiative, for which she produced a vinyl installation at the exit of Piccadilly Circus Station.

Since then Tantra has gone on to make increasingly ambitious works, including her painting across the length of the DLR Bridge in Canary Wharf titled A Beautiful Sunset Mistaken for a Dawn, which was commissioned by Canary Wharf Group in anticipation of the 2012 Olympics. Other projects include an installation at the Open Eye Gallery as part of the 2012 Liverpool Biennial.

Of public art, Tantra has said: 'There's a sort of "constructivist" approach to the entire process which I like [...] there are the practicalities of making the work itself whilst giving the artwork a "social function"'. She feels that her Balinese heritage has affected her work less in its appearance than in the way that art 'is embedded in life- which is what public art does- and the idea of working together with people [...] I guess that it is like a celebration'.

During Tantra's Bridget Riley Fellowship at the BSR, she was selected to design the Drappellone for the 2017 Palio di Siena, a twice-yearly tradition stretching back 600 years, in which representatives of the 17 contradae (districts) of Siena race on horseback to win the prized flag. Since 1970, it is convention that an international artist be chosen to design the flag. Tantra united her contemporary design and colour palette with the compulsory elements: the Madonna of the Assumption, the City insignia (Terzi), and the symbols of each contrada participating in the race), as well as that year's commemoration for Giovanni Duprè.

As part of the 2017 Folkestone Triennial, Sinta Tantra was invited by Lewis Biggs (founder of the Liverpool Biennial) to paint the Cube building on Tontine Street. Inspired by the diversity of Tontine Street's migrant residents, Tantra took visual cues from an eclectic mix of sources. The fluid lines and spliced circles flanking one side of the building are a gesture to the colour patterns of Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979). The work's title, and its colours (candy pink, racing green and Wedgewood blue) were lifted from a poster from 1947 advertising rail travel to Folkestone.She says ‘I wanted to inject some of that [advert’s] romance into the intervention’.

Tantra has said that the aim of the work was "to make the building fizz. I wanted to have a retro feel, because I was thinking of Folkestone as a seaside town", she says. "I was thinking about post-war Britain and what that meant, and the idea of holidays, because after the war it was obviously quite difficult."

Tantra was commissioned by the city of Songdo, Korea's ‘High Tech Utopia’, to create a floor painting as part of its major public art programme. Songdo is one of the world's first "Smart Cities". The artwork is located by the waterfront and measures over 3,300 square metres. Seen from above, it communicates the forward-looking drive of the "city of the future".

Tantra's palette of muted pinks and blues was complemented by a lighting scheme by Lighting Design International. LED projectors under the bridge washed soft coloured light from end to end, which adapted to echo the transitions of sky from day to night.[26] The painting required 5,000 litres of paint and over 3 km of specialist masking tape to achieve the clean, precise lines that Tantra is known for.[27] As part of the project, Tantra recorded a 24-hour time lapse sequence that showed the sunset and sunrise over the bridge.[26] It is part of Canary Wharf Group's Permanent Collection, alongside artists such as Lynn Chadwick, Bruce McLean, and Catherine Yass.

As Tantra puts it: "Growing up in London, my Balinese father daily played Gamelan music on the cassette player at home. For him, it was a way to transport himself back to the small village where he grew up and immerse himself in fond memories. In his book, McPhee writes about the relationship between the abstract and syncopated sounds of Gamelan music and how, like Jazz, the music is percussion led. In this new series of paintings, I wanted to draw a stronger focus on a sense of rhythm and how line and colour represents a sort of musical notation across the canvas."

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