"""Negative space is central to Galih Adika Paripurna’s practice. It is not merely what exists around a form, but a form in itself. Much like the space between characters in typography, its proportion and distance allow each character to exist as part of a whole. His interest in negative space often manifests in his paintings through an inversion of emphasis, where the background stands out, while the foreground becomes secondary.

In his familiar works on aluminum panels, the surface appears polished, precise, and controlled. Yet the expansive negative space is interrupted by a deliberate network of cracks, produced through a calculated painting process. What initially resembles the imperfections due to deterioration of an old painting is, in fact, constructed.

Working with paper, these tendencies toward control begin to loosen. Unlike heavy-duty aluminum, paper is raw, immediate, and receptive. A pencil line drawn on paper bears a different register from paint sprayed onto metal. Here, Galih works more intuitively, allowing forms to emerge using graphite, without being fully resolved. They entice pareidolia, the human tendency to find familiar images within abstract forms, while resisting the need to settle on a single interpretation.

Paper becomes Galih’s return to the basic in his practice and invites a process of unlearning, in which the work does not instruct the viewer what to see. Rather, it exposes enough space for them to find something of their own."""