RAYASTRE(born 1968) is an Indonesian autodidact living in the Netherlands, interested in folk art and enlightenment. After a profoundly transformative and mystical experience, his artistic work changed dramatically. His practice is a mystical process in which he relinquishes active control and becomes the vehicle of his subconscious.

Rayastre has been active as a musician and visual artist since 1989 and has published over 110 musical titles (see selected discography here). He has been exhibiting his visual work to the public since 2023.

The surrealist works shine in a strange light, similar to how the artist himself experienced his mystical, transformative enlightenment. It is from this personal enlightenment that the artist creates his surrealist works.

The strange in a beautiful light, leading to enlightened surrealism.

“When I looked at the fuel timer on my car dashboard it showed the numbers 999.9 changing to 000.0. I stepped out of my car and went to the ceremony. The group was small but dedicated. I inhaled the holy secretion deeply and slowly. Due to my large lung capacity I could inhale for a long time. I heard the shaman say ‘stop’ and I felt my body falling back and experienced the world disintegrating, like everything loosing molecular integrity, each molecule separating from one another and vaporizing. The disintegration felt like fizzing air, reversed. At the final moment of this I was already gone, into abstraction, absorbed by the All. There no longer was a Self or I to perceive anything. My first realization of where I was came with the realization that I was coming from somewhere I had no memory of. Again, the fizzing air, but now cleansing me on every possible level. I was a molecule, moving in a cosmic stream of energy. I was the energy. Being a conscious part of the All is the most healing experience possible and although it happens in a timeless and formless eternity, in earthly time it only lasted 30 minutes. In and out through a portal. This changed my life, for eternity.”