She began to study painting when she was in Junior High School from the senior artist Barli Sasmitawinata. In 1994, she graduated from Faculty of Art & Design Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). In 1997, she started her own Private studio for fashion and Design; POLENG STUDIO. Her performance in design and fashion has been acknowledged by many international art institutions and done intensively participated in many domestics and overseas exhibitions. Recently, she started painting again and participated in many exhibitions, in Jakarta (Galeri Nasional). The fabulous artworks of ”2008 Won’t Ever Be “ have been chosen as the permanent collection of the Olympic Fine Arts Museum, CHINA.
Tiarma Sirait is an exciting Bandung-based fashion artist whom is not fearful about presenting visually provocative and thought provoking installations, performances, textiles and fashions that question all the conventional wisdoms both of the East and West.
Most recently she has employed pink plastics and synthetic fur to highlight the fickleness, volatility and falsehood that permeate our dearly held beliefs, influences and lifestyles. Through her bold conceptual approaches to art, fashion design and pop culture, Tiarma has explored themes such as love and lust, foreign influences on Indonesian culture and mass consumerism to name but a few. Her art is intended to show the hyper reality in the contemporary context. She used fashion in my painting as a medium to express the journey of my performances. She shows her exploration of her free spirit in her painting. Her artwork uses pink as the main color. She uses this color to give an eccentric sensation for her creation. She used pink also because the color is very girly, kitsch, synthetic. She has worked quite consistently with pink since the beginning of her career as a fashion artist in 1998. It has been her signature to use this brilliant color in her artwork.
Tiarma was educated in the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and the University of Borås, Sweden (Master in Fashion & Textile Design). She has exhibited extensively throughout Indonesia and in countries around the world such as the UK, France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Australia, China, Canada, Cuba and Malaysia, among others.
She is a fashion artist, which aims to support diversity in Indonesian fashion through active participation in the local and international fashion scenes. Tiarma is passionate about developing the creativity of young Indonesian designers through workshops and internship programs and events. She sees her key role in the facilitation of fashion at Poleng Studio as a medium of expression and communication through various exhibitions, lectures, writing, performances and forums.
