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A Brief History of Arkiv Vilmansa

IKEA Art Event 2018: Arkiv Vilmansa’s Hira

n assembling their fourth annual Art Event collection, IKEA enlisted eight contemporary artists to create sculptural works for production as limited edition glass figurines. And for his part in this project, the piece titled Hira, artist Arkiv Vilmansa ‘s fluid and dream-like imagery is perfectly embodied.Almost immediately after completing his bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Universitas Katolik Parahyangan in 2005, this Indonesian artist plunged into a career in the arts, citing his love for drawing characters as his inspiration for this change of direction. Since making this decision, Vilmansa’s surreal and whimsical caricature paintings have been featured in galleries worldwide, their walls adorned with his precisely executed swathes of Day-Glo color and masterfully rendered curvaceous strokes. In 2009, his Arkiv Instant designer toy form was first issued, the well-received vinyl figure leading to other opportunities, one such being his Mickiv creation, a cartoonish creature inspired by Mickey Mouse, pandas, and killer whales, which was issued in resin cast form (2012) and vinyl renditions (2014). But when IKEA invited him to participate in the fourth annual Art Event, Vilmansa opted to avoid revisiting his previous designer toy forms and instead was inspired by a creature he’d created for January 2015’s Future, Present and Past exhibition at Singapore’s Element Art Space “I’ve been working with this figure since 2014 with layer painting”, says Vilmansa, referring to the pieces he created for the Future, Present and Past exhibit using multi-layered paints on acrylic plastic sheets. And perhaps its origins are what make this design, which is titled Hira, so appropriate for the glass medium, the transparent areas allowing for multiple copies to be stacked in an askew manner, creating a true sculptural realization of the layer painting concept. And while some might refer to Hira as an anthropomorphic mushroom or a colorfully decorated squid, its creator thinks of it in terms of what it symbolizes. “Hira means good dreams”, Vilmansa states. “Good dreams can be so important to your life”, the artist continues, adding that this’s “what Hira is all about.”

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Junko Mizuno's Nocturnal Nick Curtis For the IKEA Art Event 2018, the Swedish-founded Dutch-based company focused on issuing affordable sculptural art pieces. Creating a collection of limited edition glass figurines that were handmade at Målerås Glassworks, IKEA invited eight contemporary artists to participate in the project, most of whom had a background involving designer toys.…