Artist Profile | Cartoon & Caricature

Jitet Koestana

Jitet Koestana, whose real name Koestana, was born in Semarang, Central Java on January 4, 1967. He is an artist of Indonesian nationality. He is known as the caricaturist whose works adorn several national media outlets. Jitet won several awards for his work. As a childhood tease, Jitet eventually became Koestono's original complementary name given to him by his parents, who transforms into Koestana to dynamically impress. Jitet is already familiar with drawing from a very young age. While sitting on a bench, he decided to leave school. Then, together with his parents, he created a small used book stall to sell them. From there, he later met people, including friends who love to draw, like Slamet Baijuri, the owner of the cartoonist Bogel, who introduced him to the drawing community in Semarang. He began to learn more deeply the ins and outs of cartoons. He studied the type of paper, ink and bagaimanaa how to send the work to join the race. His career continued to rise as he tried his luck working in the media. He filled the Humor column in the newspaper “Java Pos” for 3 years. He then switched to tabloid style for 5 years. Later, he became an illustrator at “Senior Tabloid”, a subsidiary of the “Kompas Gramedia” Group. In the end, the newspaper “Kompas” asked Jitet to periodically fill in the fields of political cartoons to replace “G.M. Sudarta.” Some of his works were exhibited at international festivals. On some occasions he won numerous prizes in the international cartoon competition, of which he was registered in the Indonesian Record Museum as the most awarded internationally, specifically 36 pieces (1998). Later his work appeared as winner of the Grand Prize at the Seoul International Cartoon Festival - South Korea (1997), Grand Prize at the Córdoba International Cartoon Festival - Spain (2000), Grand Prize at the Syrian International Cartoon Competition - Syria (April 2005) and again won the Gold Prize at Champions The 9th Kyoto International Cartoon Exhibition - Japan (2010). Apart from being a cartoonist, he also wrote several books together with some writers such as “Jiddu Krishnamurti Revolution” (1999), which he wrote together with Darminto M. Sudarmo, “Indonesian Damn Good Cartoon” – Cartoon set of Champion (2010), which he wrote together with Arif Sutristanto, Didie SW and Thomdean. In addition, he is also frequently invited to be a jury at the Cartoon Festival International.