Indonesian artist Iman Santoso “Love Nature Unnatural” at Galerie Stephanie is a rich, surreal commentary on the destruction of nature.

Mainly delving into the landscape genre, Santoso evokes the tangled web of nature in colors that hover between the dreamy and the fantastic.

“His surreal creations display the subversion of nature under human hands,” said art writer Francesca Testa.

Manmade subversion of nature is depicted through “unnatural figures that begin to corrupt the human mind, so that each face, shape and color seem to take over nature.”

Both a conservator at the National Museum of Indonesia as and an artist, Santoso executes surreal artworks reflecting his passion for conserving culture and nature, as well as cultivating domestic peace.

Born in 1986 in Indonesia’s artistic capital of Yogyakarta, Santoso graduated from the Fine Arts Department of the Indonesian Art Institute. He was awarded United Overseas Bank Painting of the Year in 2011, and has exhibited in Indonesia, Malaysia, Hungary and Korea. —CONTRIBUTED

Santoso’s “Love Nature Unnatural” runs until Oct. 21 at Galerie Stephanie, 4/F, East Wing, Shangri-La Plaza, Mandaluyong; tel. 9405726