And now, a new exhibition of some of the key figures in the modernist art movement is on show at the National Portrait Gallery.

It's the first time works from the National Gallery of Indonesia have been on display in Australia, and the show gives art-lovers an insight into both modern and traditional life in the huge and fascinating country that is so close, and yet so far away.

Exhibitions manager Christine Clark, who has worked with contemporary south-east Asian art for the last 20 years, said the gallery had worked alongside Indonesian curators to ensure they had most representative collection of the modernist period from the 1940s to the 1980s.

"Some of those artists are seen as the modern masters," she said.

"Sudjojono is always referred to as the father of the Indonesia modernism, for instance, and we've got two of the iconic works that everyone always refers to."

One, a quiet rendering of a woman sewing is typical of the movement Sudjojono founded in reaction to the idealised images often associated with Indonesian art.

"He was very much rebelling against the Mooi Indie style, which translates as the Beautiful Indies," she said.

"He was very much against this kind of exoticisation of the Indonesian people - lots of beautiful landscapes and picturesque fields, and often it's the bare-breasted female, and they're not really representing the individual, they're just representing the Javanese. He was saying… art is really a weapon that we need to show the visible soul within our art."

She said the portrait depicting his pregnant wife sewing was a domestic scene but did not glorify the traditional Indonesian lifestyle.

Also on display are several works by Indonesian artists who were asked to respond to the more traditional works.

One of the artists, Willy Himawan, made his first trip to Australia this week to see his work installed in the gallery.

He said his photographic work, part of a series he has called Jamais Vu, was in response to the alienation he often felt living in Indonesia.

"You have your iphone now, you have your ipad, and it sucks you down… You feel alienated, you feel a stranger to everyday life – that's a disease in psychiatry, but I like that because in Facebook and other social media and everything, sometimes we feel lonely."

He said the work represented his life as a Balinese Hindu working in Bandung, which is predominantly Muslim.

Ms Clark agreed with agreed with Himawan that it was an exciting time to be a working artist in Indonesia.

"It is an exceptionally vibrant scene… especially since the fall of Suharto," she said.

"A lot of works were political, but now there's more a range of themes, whether they're looking at personal collective identity or global issues."