Throwing Away Bad Luck 2003

Nyoman Masriadi made this painting, Throwing Away Bad Luck, with what looks like acrylic paint, giving it that smooth, almost airbrushed finish. The color palette is pretty limited, mostly muted purples and grays, which gives the whole scene a kind of dreamlike quality, like it's not quite real. Look at the way the man is straining under the weight of that gigantic pencil. The paint is so smooth, you can almost feel the weight of the object, but it’s so stylized it reads a bit like a cartoon. It's so weirdly serious, like the artist is wrestling with something monumental. It reminds me a bit of Magritte, you know? That surreal juxtaposition of ordinary objects in unexpected scales. It’s like Masriadi is saying something about the burden of creativity, or maybe just the absurdity of trying to make something new. And in the end, isn't all art just a way of throwing away bad luck, or at least trying to make sense of it?