Rostarr set to unveil biggest mural to date at Desa Potato Head Bali

On October 16, Bali’s Desa Potato Head will reveal Evolving Landscapes, a mural by Korean-American artist Rostarr covering the entire 1,644 square metre façade of the Beach Club.

Part of the venue's Cultural Exchange Series, it’s said to be the largest and most intricate piece of his career so far.

The story starts in 2009, when Rostarr painted Potato Head's Green Bus, one of the brand's first moving surfaces. Seventeen years later he lives in Bali, and the collaboration has grown from a bus to a building.

Born Romon Kimin Yang in South Korea in 1971, he grew up in Washington, D.C. and studied graphic design and printmaking at New York's School of Visual Arts.

Over 30 years he has worked across painting, calligraphy, murals and film, and he is a founding member of the Barnstormers collective. His film, Kill The Ego, premiered at the Centre Pompidou.

The Desa Potato Head mural was painted freehand in Graphysics, his visual language that merges East Asian calligraphy with bold geometric form. From a distance it looks like one sweeping field of black-and-white line.

Up close, it breaks down into Barong, dancers, crowds and music.

“I’m seeking inspiration from the vivid culture and people of Bali — incorporating gods and deities, traditional dancers, and sun and sea worshippers. I hope to represent these iconic images through my abstract calligraphic style to create a mural of epic proportions,” says Rostarr about his work.

The day of the reveal will start at 3PM, when the Beach Club becomes an open-air dancefloor with Archie, Ryosuke Fukunaga, Yuka Mizuhara, Eric Duncan, Alex From Tokyo and Suze Ijó playing until midnight from a DJ booth Rostarr hand-painted.

Alongside the music, Rostarr and Potato Head Creative Director Dan Mitchell talk at Klymax at 5:30PM about their 17-year creative relationship.

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At 6:45PM, Bumi Bajra and composer Putu Septa lead an opening ceremony with live gamelan, and projection mapping animates the mural after dark.

Later, the party moves to Klymax with Gero, Benedek and Yuka Mizuhara back-to-back, before Tokyo collective Timothy Really Lab. closes the night. There’s also a pop-up for a capsule collection with Japanese label nonnative that will run throughout the day.

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Evolving Landscapes will stay on the Beach Club façade for twelve months, during which sun, salt and monsoon rain will gradually weather the paint.

When the façade comes down, its materials will be recovered and reused around Desa Potato Head as part of the venue's sustainability efforts.

Tickets to the launch event of Evolving Landscapes on October 16 available here.

Amira Waworuntu is Mixmag Asia’s Managing Editor, follow her on Instagram.

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