achyar
Gleuenta was born and
raised in Acheh, a northern region of Sumatra the epicenter of
the deadly earthquake and subsequent tsunami of December 26,
2004. (Acheh
unfolded;
before and after;
aerial
views; via NY Times may
require reg)
He began his career in art
working as an artist's helper in Acheh and continued to follow
this path when he moved to Jakarta, Indonesia. It was during
this time period that his talents came to the attention of
both the local and international communities.
In 1994 Machyar participated in an
exhibition in Jakarta at the National Gallery; this event brought
together artists from many sections of Indonesia. That exhibition
was the turning point for him and set him on a course that would
ultimately bring him to America.
Two years later, Machyar received a
full scholarship from the Maine College of Art in Portland Maine.
Prior to departing for the United States, officials in the United
States Embassy in Jakarta, as well as businessmen in Indonesia,
helped raise the funds necessary for him to make his journey to
America to begin his formal studies.
In addition to the Maine
College of Art, Machyar also studied at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The Academy is the oldest
school of fine art in the United States and considered
internationally to be one of the finest schools of figurative
art in the world. Machyar's interests include painting,
sculpture and printmaking. His portraits and landscapes are
warm, inviting and classic in style. One of his landscapes,
Serving Before Dusk, hangs in the home of the former
ambassador to the United States from Indonesia.
People often comment that his
landscapes and portraits are reminiscent of the "Old Masters". The
tonal qualities of Machyar’s oil paintings are luxuriously
luminescent and his interpretations have an amazing way of capturing
nature's wild, "untamed" qualities and yet, at the same time, create
in the viewer an almost sublime feeling of peace and
tranquility—qualities that are too often in short supply in our
unsettled times.
Machyar now resides in the United
States.
See
also
In his
own words
