Lahir tahun 1975 di Lumajang, Jawa Timur, tinggal dan bekerja di Yogyakarta, Mohamad Yusuf, yang dikenal sebagai Ucup, menghasilkan karya cetakan balok kayu yang mempercakapkan soal perjuangan sosial-politik lokal dan global, menyoroti paradoks sehari-hari kehidupan modern di Indonesia saat ini. Pada tahun 1998, sebagai lulusan baru Institut Seni Indonesia, Ucup berpartisipasi dalam pembentukan kolektif seni politik Taring Padi. Hari ini, Ucup masih terlibat dalam kegiatan Taring Padi, selain mengerjakan proyek-proyek individunya yang telah mendapatkan lebih banyak selama 3 tahun belakangan.

Dapat dikatakan bahwa beberapa karya individu Ucup terlalu mirip dengan karya Taring Padi, terutama yang meminjam format dan citra yang terlihat dalam poster-poster politik era Perang Dingin. Namun, karya terbaru Ucup menunjukkan perkembangan gaya yang menarik dengan komentar sosial yang jauh lebih kompleks dan terartikulasikan secara padat—jauh dari rumusan hitam putih karya individu sebelumnya.

Karya-karya Ucup telah dipamerkan secara luas di Indonesia dan dia juga terlibat hampir di setiap Artjog sejak 2012. Karyanya telah dipamerkan di Prancis, Jerman, AS, Australia, dan Jepang dan berada dalam koleksi tetap Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum, and Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. Dia telah tiga kali mengadakan pameran tunggal di Indonesia, serta di Singapura pada tahun 2015 di Tomio Koyama Gallery di mana dia kemudian ditampilkan oleh galeri di Art Stage Singapore dan Art Basel, Hong Kong.

Born in 1975 in Lumajang, East Java, living and working in Yogyakarta, Mohamad Yusuf, known as Ucup, produces woodblock prints that talk about local and global socio-political struggles, highlighting the everyday paradoxes of modern life in Indonesia today. . In 1998, as a recent graduate of the Indonesian Art Institute, Ucup participated in the formation of the political art collective Taring Padi. Today, Ucup is still involved in Taring Padi activities, apart from working on his individual projects which he has earned more over the past 3 years.

It could be argued that some of Ucup’s individual works are too similar to Taring Padi’s, especially those borrowing the format and imagery seen in Cold War-era political posters. However, Ucup’s latest work shows an interesting stylistic development with a much more complex and densely articulated social commentary—far from the black and white formulations of previous individual works.

Ucup’s works have been exhibited extensively in Indonesia and he has also been involved in almost every Artjog since 2012. His works have been exhibited in France, Germany, USA, Australia and Japan and are in the permanent collections of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum, and Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. He has held solo exhibitions three times in Indonesia, as well as in Singapore in 2015 at Tomio Koyama Gallery where he was later featured by galleries at Art Stage Singapore and Art Basel, Hong Kong.