Artist : Ugo Untoro
Genre : Paintings
Period : July 30 till August 30, Everyday, 10.00AM till 9.00PM
Location:Biasa Art Space, Jl. Raya Seminyak 34, Seminyak,
Tel: 7442902
Ugo Untoro was born in Purbalingga in Central Java in 1970.
He studied at the Indonesia Institute of Art (ISI) in Yogyakarta,
and, since 1988, he has exhibited extensively both in Indonesia
and abroad. In his current exhibition ‘My Lonely Riot’,
at the Biasa Gallery, he utilizes an unusual technique to
create his challenging art works. ‘Corat-Coret’
literally includes the notions of ‘scribbling’,
‘doodling’, ‘casual drawing’ and ‘graffiti’.
For several years Ugo has been “consciously, or otherwise,
ceaselessly wrestling with the conventions, definitions and
possibilities of ‘casual drawing’ in order to
offer signs and meaningfulmessages”. Not to be confused
with political street graffiti, which Ugo unashamedly rejects,
he seeks to create a spontaneous art that comes directly from
the unconscious, through its sources that are to be found
in the Jungian ‘collective unconscious’, and in
a language of personal iconography rooted in the circumstances
of his life.
Many of Ugo’s works, for example ‘pregnant horse’,
appear as quick ‘sketches’, while others, such
as ‘circus of the self’, can be more dialectic,
but, when viewed together, they take on the appearance of
scribbled notes from a day-to-day visual journal that offer
the viewer a glimpse into his tormented psyche. These child-like
‘doodles’ are a repository of ideas that can be
elaborated and extended into his more serious and larger paintings.
A very confrontational work is ‘escape’, which
addresses the most powerful image in religious iconography,
namely the Christian cross. The image is open to various interpretations.
One reading can imply that Christ himself found the pressure
of his faith overwhelming, and decided to climb down from
his cross and walk away from it, while the image could also
imply that Ugo himself approached Christianity, and then he
too decided to walk away. Either way, it is an arresting image
that resonates deep within the viewer, tapping into, as it
does, the ‘collective’ recognition of this universal
icon. However, ‘crows want to be man’, utilizes
Ugo’s more personal imagery, and in this work a poetic
image of a flock of birds coming together in the form of a
man creates an almost dreamlike, surreal, hallucinatory canvas.
Whether Ugo is depicting signs from the ‘collective
unconscious’, or from his own lexicon of symbols, all
his works depict the curse of being an artist. “Ugo
realizes his overwhelming emptiness but remains persistent
to give meaning to it. He turns inward, to find the image
of a human being that is similar with nature, which appears
friendly and harmonious on the outside, but, is filled up
with erupting commotions in the internal niches and layers”.
Ugo’s art can often be not pretty to look at.
He consciously rejects the concept of beauty, that particular
combination of lines, forms and color that stir our aesthetic
emotions. Ugo prefers a more spontaneous bravado, which displays
a crude and gestural painting technique. Some of his paintings
are humorous, some very personal, and others very violent.
This violence can be interpreted to suggest a representation
of the aggression within everyone, including the artist himself.
A work, such as ‘the night is coming’, presents
a horrific image of a man and dog, both on all fours, snarling
and howling at the encroaching darkness. The painting is rough
and crude. The line work, the brushwork, and even the balance
of the image, is intentionally ‘wrong’. This ‘disturbance’
of the image intentionally intensifies the horror and latent
aggression to be found in the painting. Many of Ugo’s
paintings will intentionally show grotesque distortions and
crude elementary execution in an attempt to enhance and highlight
the image or scenario being depicted.
Cunningly, Ugo has also included in his exhibition one or
two superb examples of his mastery of the figurative expressionist
style. These works indicate that his use of spontaneous and
crude image making techniques, or his ‘Corat-Coret’
technique, are a deliberate attempt at working without conscious
control and are based on a deep understanding of his paint
medium. The canvas ‘ibu dan anak insomnia’ may
have a typical ‘dark’ theme, but, all-the-same,
it is a wonderful piece of work where-in the brooding shapes
are well balanced by excepts of text, subtly rendered birds,
and skillfully controlled scratches, splashes andexpressive
paint dribbles.
Ugo Untoro’s exhibition ‘My Lonely Riot’
is a challenging show. There is much to be absorbed in the
work, from his spontaneous ‘sketches’ to his crude
depiction of violence. His works offer an insight into his
personal demons that we may find have ramifications deep within
our own psyche.
