THE BALLERINA (VOL. 2) by Metalhead Melankolis
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: MIXED MEDIA
Dimensions: 12.5 x 14 cm
Year: 2026
Price: $269.00 USD
Status: available
The Ballerina is a series I first worked on back in 2023 (slide 2), and this is its second volume. The first volume is still somewhere in the middle of my archiving process. Hopefully, it’s still holding up well after all these years. With every piece I make, I find myself getting better at seeing the potential in a magazine fragment. But intuition is something else. To me, it goes much deeper, because it carries everything we’ve experienced throughout our lives. I relied on that intuition while making The Ballerina (Vol. 2). I let myself be driven by impulse, while still allowing my intuition to guide the process. And honestly, it was a lot of fun. I wasn’t afraid of making something bad. I was simply looking for the satisfaction of seeing it through to the end. Thankfully, I was still able to save this early piece before the damage got any worse. There’s something deeply sentimental about the story behind it, and being able to preserve it feels like getting a small piece of that moment back. So, this is The Ballerina. ✂ Updated September 2026 Just like a ballerina, human beings have their own performance stage that only shows the outermost side in life. The work diligently crafted using a combination of acrylic paint, oil pastel, HVS paper, and magazine cutouts by Metalhead Melankolis. Framed in A4 size.
Why collect this work?
A compressed, forward-leaning figure is assembled from incompatible printed fragments. Its readable silhouette holds the body together while shifts in scale, imagery and language make performance appear less like grace than an act of maintaining coherence.
- Metalhead Melankolis describes making this second volume through impulse guided by intuition. That account clarifies the work’s abrupt combinations, although the visible structure also shows careful control of the figure’s outline.
- In the supplied photograph, the bowed head, curved back and extended arm establish a directional pose against an open pale field. Enlarged hands frame the action, while patterned and typographic fragments interrupt anatomical continuity.
- The catalogue identifies magazine cutouts, HVS paper, acrylic paint and oil pastel. Collage enables sudden changes between skin, text, landscape and decorative pattern; the drawn and painted media may help bind or modify those separate sources.
- At 12.5 by 14 centimetres, the work concentrates a question relevant to portraiture and representations of performers: how can a body remain publicly legible when its surface is composed of competing roles and messages?
About the Artist
Metalhead Melankolis
Metalhead Melankolis is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: Mixed Media Collage. Based in Jakarta, ID.
Nationality: Indonesian
Metalhead Melankolis is a poet who has a strong attachment to the art of collage.
