Rizman Putra’s Sontol Al Loyo, The Legend (2006), follows Sontol Al Loyo, a fictitious superstar performed by the artist himself. A sequence of performances is put up by this idol character as he rotates through different personas to match a range of musical genres. From folk music to heavy metal, the archetype of these genres hint at a larger representation of the simplified idea of a Malay man. The title is a play on words – the Indonesian colloquial word, Sontoloyo, means ‘stupid’. While meant to be a humorous parody, the work undoubtedly brings forth darker issues about moulding ourselves in an attempt to gain social acceptance, questioning how much of our appearance truly reflect our inner selves. The line between society and the individual thus becomes blurred on the social surface of our skin.

Rizman Putra graduated with Master of Arts (Fine Arts) from LASALLE College of the Arts in 2007, and has been actively straddling between performance, visual arts and music for the last decade.

In 2005, Rizman was one of the four artists selected for the President’s Young Talents Exhibition, and was part of the Fukuoka Triennale. In the same year, the now dissolved arts collective he co-founded,  Kill Your Television (KYTV), was awarded the Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (JCCI) Singapore Foundation Arts Award.

Rizman has performed locally and internationally, and at the inaugural Singapore Biennale 2006. Rizman is one half of the retro futurist electronic duo, NADA, and is currently an Associate Artist with Cake Theatrical Productions.