Jayanto Tan

Born: Indonesia

Lives and works: Sydney, NSW

Artist Statement

FieldDay in the Celestial Garden, 2025
Ceramic work on masonry bricks, performance

Jayanto Tan’s practice often draws on his family archive of memories and memorabilia for inspiration with his fragmented heritage. As a young child, Jayanto observed his mother cooking and preparing food for his Chinese migrant father. He frequently seeks out family rituals, authentic recipes, objects and traces that evoke the presence of this loved one.

In Field Day in the Celestial Garden, Jayanto represents a joyous and colourful ceramic installation and performance that seek to reframe the histories of colonialism, conflict and displacement. Through this project, he strives to preserve and celebrate these rituals and memories, whilst also offering a unique and shared safe space for the community. In doing so, these personal projects aim to heal grief and seek to build a connection—as a gift to share with future generations.

About the Artist

Jayanto Tan is a visual artist who was born and raised in a small village in North Sumatra, Indonesia to a Sumatran Christian mother and Guandong, China Taoist father. As an immigrant visual artist living in Sydney, who fled poverty and political repression in search of a better life, his practice blends Eastern and Western mythologies with the reality of current events.

He draws on the identity politics of his diaspora to express personal experiences of ‘otherness’ through found objects, ceramics, sculpture, authentic food, installation and performance. His practice shares autobiographical experiences of loss, displacement, hope and offers a sentiment of mixed spirituality and sharing to demonstrate a diverse culture bringing the timeless wisdom of meditation to a contemporary world.

Jayanto Tan will be doing a free tea ceremony performance at the CWA at 11am Saturday - bring your favourite tea cup.

The artist will also walk in the OpenField Art Parade at 4pm on Saturday 14 June