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Abstract

Contemporary visual art is not only understood as an aesthetic object but also as a medium for social reflection and critique. This article analyzes Angry Mum (2024), a painting by Fadjar Djunaedi, using Feldman’s art criticism approach, which consists of four stages: description, formal analysis, interpretation, and evaluation. This study employs a qualitative method through visual observation of the artwork, interviews with the artist, and a literature review. To deepen the interpretation of visual meaning, Ferdinand de Saussure’s and Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic theories are employed as analytical tools. The findings reveal that Angry Mum represents the psychological pressure, emotional exhaustion, and mental load experienced by mothers within the domestic sphere. These meanings are conveyed through figurative distortion, dense composition, dominant dark colors, domestic symbols, and verbal texts that construct a visual narrative of pressure and the complexity of women's roles. Critically, the artwork succeeds in presenting strong emotional expression while simultaneously conveying social criticism of expectations and gender stereotypes associated with motherhood. The study demonstrates that the integration of Feldman’s art criticism with Saussurean and Peircean semiotics is effective in revealing the relationship between visual structure, sign systems, and social meaning in contemporary visual art.

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