A.R. Makoginta

“Balance” lexically means…

Sorry, I shouldn’t have to continue, since this sentence is so often over used with our own individual understandings in our daily lives. And this discourse does not intends to carry on the tendency of a fine art student who is about to pull off their thesis exam: busying themselves by collecting references from all nooks and crannies of literature, from terminology books, so that it sounds posh, academic but in the end it would only lead me to think that I am understanding north, whereas the exhibiting artist is actually thinking about south.

I would like to put forth quite simply what the artist’s view on the matter of reasons behind their methods and their work. For this intention I will not try to explain things based on references, but merely from snippets of conversation I had with these three current exhibiting artists.

This exhibition began with Enin Supriyanto and Jumaldi Alfi’s plan to showcase some work by: Andre Risa Putra, Ricky Wahyudi and Rully Rahim. The first time Enin caught a glimpse of their work was at the sizable Sanggar Sakato exhibition –now officially named Komunitas Seni Sakato- titled “Bakaba” in Jogja National Museum, Jogjakarta, in 2010.

He explained to me, more or less like this: “There is no better way to test out whether you can swim or not, than splashing yourself into the pool.”

There it is. These three artists, and me, having to face new and difficult challenges. I had to write an introduction for this exhibition, and I kind of had to start to fathom what it is to be a “curator” and my responsibilities; meanwhile my three associates, the artists, had to convince me that their work is worthy for you to appreciate.

Therefore, there was no other way, I needed to set foot and start chatting with these three artists. And, in my opinion, this is the easiest and most relevant way of understanding what exactly they are doing and strive for in creating paintings, ones that are currently displayed in this exhibition room.

***

Andre Risa Putra. Tomboy. 2010. 145 x 190 cm. Oil on canvas.

I met with Andre Risa Putra in his studio which is doubled as his residence. He eagerly began to line works depicting human figures in front of us.

A question came into being, what drew Andre to pick people as the objects in his paintings?

“This is nonetheless because these figures may represent my feelings towards living my life these past couple of years.” Then what feelings are represented by them? “Well, personal emotions. Look here… This figure portrays my incapability to do anything except immerse my head into stuff around me, as a result of one event that I went through at the time. The same occurred when something happened to me that made me feel unstable, it resurfaced and I became carried away into emptiness. As a matter of fact the chain of events started with my work Tomboy (2010), which illustrated four figures of women who caused the events to happen.”

I looked at your paintings made in the same year and not all of them depicted figures, does that mean those figure-less ones did not relate to your emotions?

“That is true. I am not the type of artist who is fixated on a certain method of work or term in my painting, at this moment what is more intense to me are people. The most important thing is this: as long as it represents my emotions.”

It seems to you painting plays a sort of means to escape from the problems that you are going dealing with, be it figure-present or figure-less?

“That’s it… Whenever I am going through something that makes me feel unbalanced then I just paint and recompose those emotions.”

***

Ricky Wahyudi. PM 07:07 Real Unreal. 2010. 120 x 100 cm. Acrylic on canvas.

Ricky Wahyudi has been for the last couple of years exploring forms of the city. This does not necessarily mean he tries to picture the issue of chaotic state of the city with all its problems.

Let’s observe what it is behind Ricky’s choice.

“As singular individuals of course we would have goals and our approaches to achieve those goals would each be different. For me to achieve mine I would need a directive to carry it out. So that even in the brink of darkness, there would still be light as my guidance.”

Why did you pick the city then?

“The darkness I refer to is darkness in living life in the middle of all these developments. I once resided in a big city up until 2007. However I never lived in a confined room.”

Why not then choose which city to work on, perhaps the one you once resided in?

“Not so, because I am not really narrating about the problems that exist in that city.”

Apparently, he fabricates the city, darkness, and a multitude of colours that arise out of the dark to illuminate as some kind of metaphor for his personal life, in addition to being his guide in living his life.

***

Rully Rahim. Campur Rasa. 2011. 120 x 130 cm. Acrylic on canvas.

Initially, I had thought Rully Rahim to have an educational background in crafting because he is very adamant in detailing all sorts of decorative motifs on his canvas. As it turns out I guessed wrong.

In many of his work he does use motifs, or decorative ornaments that I have come to know as “kaluak paku kacang balimbiang”. This motif is frequently used in Minangkabau traditional decorations. Now according to tradition, these curvy vine-like ornaments are said to symbolize beliefs on keeping the balance between sense and sensibility within daily life in the society. Explained more clearly, it refers to traditional Minangkabau customs, teachings that are found within these motifs are: raising children well whether they are your biological child or not, respecting your fellow community, and each problem should be approached with sense and sensibility (logic).

So then what was your consideration to pick these types of ornaments that vastly encompasses his canvases?

He explains: “To me, wherever we live if we always keep the concept of balancing sense and logic, we will never be excommunicated by other people. Tolerating each other, appreciating one another, and mutual respect is good for me and is graceful to others.”

In that case why did you not use engraving or embroidery to convey those teachings?

“You see… I use the language and technique of painting, because it gives me more freedom to express myself, and to combine with motifs representing balance from other places. As a matter of fact, in the end I also deformed those motifs.”

***

There you go, these three artists talk about “balance”, in their own different ways and manners. How successful were they (and I) in our first attempt to present these works of art to you? This ultimately comes back to us too: we have only just moved and tried to comprehend “balance”. We hope that this might be our assurance towards our capacity and our bid to survive in “swimming” the great wide tussling ocean of contemporary art in Indonesia.

Moreover, your appreciation would be our most prized lesson. As grand as what can be offered by an artist to the public, I would rather believe there is more that can and suitably should be extracted from the publics’ response and acceptance for the artist’s work.