Dedy is an avid reader, seriously consuming books ever since he began his tertiary education in 1995. One specific area he is particularly well read in is existential philosophy, a subject that has strongly informed his artistic endeavor. Among the books he has read over the years include philosophical heavyweights such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Camus, among others.

Because of his love for reading, it should come as no surprise that text has become a very important element in his art. Dedy also notes the ubiquitous nature of text, as a means to convey information, citing the often-overlooked fact that we are subjected to text, in its various forms and mediums of presentation, at almost every waking moment. Earlier in his career, a time that Dedy describes as his Existentialist Period (1998 – 2004), text was used in his paintings in a manner that could be described as complementary to what was presented on the canvas. The text was more distinct, and one could visually track and verbalize what was presented quite easily, although portions may have been obscured. Text in his paintings during this period articulated his many experiences, reflections, daily observations, or even transcribed excerpts from books he was reading at the time. Dedy describes his use of text as an “added alternative to overcome issues of visual understanding”, citing picture stories with added text were always easier to understand, to illustrate his point. Gradually, how text is used in Dedy’s artworks evolved, a process that began when he started to ponder and question the utilization of text in paintings. How did the convention of text begin? Who was the first to become aware of text, and what were the circumstances surrounding this awareness? Could text itself broaden and develop knowledge? These were among the core questions that became the parameters for Dedy’s serious study of text. What emerged from this philosophical thought process was an eventual repackaging of how Dedy presented text in his works. Randomly placed and multilayered applications of text emerged as new visual elements, supplanting colors and lines typical of abstract expressionist artworks. The text became not much more than disparate snippets, each having little, if any, to do with the other, providing a much-needed middle path in the tug-of-war between intuition and logic, the freedom to improvise freely on the one hand, and the logic dictates demanding that the text still be legible and readable, on the other.
The end result is that the literal meaning of the text presented no longer becomes important, and no longer contributes directly to the aesthetics intended. Instead, text now could coexist harmoniously in parallel with other visual elements and mediums within the artwork, in total becoming a reinterpretation of recorded experiences, thoughts, obsessions, and opinions of the artist.

Dedy’s artworks essentially provide the opportunity for the viewer to not only appreciate what they visually discern, but to be in control of contextual understanding. This attribute is achieved from the multilayering and random
placement of the text utilized, creating countless combinations of visual trajectories the viewer may pick up on. As opposed to books, where text is presented in an arrangement predetermined by the author, Dedy’s artworks allow the viewer to simultaneously “read” and become the author of what is “read”.