I’m proud to see my son Rafif’s works are displayed in Galeri Hadiprana for his Visual Art class exhibition.

What I like from his works are is in its honesty. He expressed his inner feelings. You can see and feal his fear, hope, anger but also loneliness. It’s loud and clear. Yet it’s artistically displayed as work of art.

Take for example this guy with blue shirt and robot mask. It’s called as “Persona.Chr”. His alias. It’s him in daily life with the full mask on. Symbolizes his struggle to show his true self while dealing with daily errands.

Or his first arcrylic painting, “Within the Shrine”, showing the Persona in dark chamber working on a computer. While it seems dark and cold, the character feels at home there. That’s him in his room.

My personal favorite is his latest digital painting. Titled as “Together, Forever, Unfortunately”, it’s a colorful art with a picture of himself contemplating, surrounded with bunch of sci-fi characters. I asked him during the exhibition on its meaning, he eloquently said those characters are actually his deep feelings that always in battle to get space in his thoughts. The red fighter is “negativity”, the Optimus-Prime like is called “responsibility”, while the big guy ready to strike is the “anger”. And so on. Got it.

He is not in any means, a mainstream boy. He is unique boy with unique talent. But it must’ve been hard for him to sail along in this world of prescribed measures, without anybody misunderstood him.

Thankfully, as he show in his half-Gundam-half-flesh statue “Monument to a Wayward’s Lament”, he understands he can’t stand still. He purposely placed this statue outside of his main exhibition area. This is also a symbol. Symbolize his intention to move forward. Leave behind the negativity. To avoid becoming a relic.

And I think that’s the main message of his exhibition. Like anybody in this world, with all of our strengths and shortcomings, we are all are “work in progress”.

Carry on my son. Reach for the sky.

With his Class 12 mates

With Director Riri Riza, who visited his booth