For Indonesian modern artists, especially those with strong tribal primordial culture, the esthetics of modern art seem to be incapable of fully accommodating their spiritual ideas related to such primordial cultures. It is because the esthetics of modern art tends to stop at the form level. The artists then put their esthetic ideas on modern art yet cling to the primordial cultural esthetics of their tribes. During such process, the esthetic transformation from mythical to ontological culture must take place. The purpose of the model is to lay groundwork for creation/study of phenomenon of local culture-based modern/contemporary art. Therefore, the material object is the artworks of the late Hendrawan Riyanto, a modern art practitioner whose most works represent primordial culture of his tribe. As for the formal object is the conceptual approach focusing on the elaboration of basic concepts as a means of analysis and construction. The analysis reveals that the model of local culture-based modern art construction is built on interrelated three layers, namely content, form, and artwork presentation layers.
Keywords: esthetics, mystical culture, ontological culture, modern art.