Artist : Made Kaek
Genre : Paintings
Period : January 17 till February 17
Everyday, 10.00AM till 6.00PM
Location : Ganesha Gallery
Four Seasons Resort, Jimbaran Bay
Tel: 701010
In 1945, the French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the term ‘Art
Brut’ to describe artworks that had been painted by
those who, whether by their own choice or not, had nothing
to do with the culture or commercialization of the art world.
His artistic label encompassed artworks produced by the free
expression of the individual, and were free from the rigid
rules governing the structures of art, both cultural and commercial.
Dubuffet maintained that only spontaneously generated works
could be true and truly represent artistic expression, for
they ignored the current art practices and languages of art
criticism. The artists he was referring to lived, as a rule,
outside the established art world and included children, the
mentally ill and the elderly, and all those who expressed
their spontaneous innermost creative impulses through art.
Dubuffet was highlighting the works of social ‘outsiders’,
who stood apart from culture, civilization, and artistic training.
For Dubuffet the roots of ‘Art Brut’ were to be
found in the myths, legends, and dreams of an “unreal”
world which existed, on equal terms, alongside the “real”
one.
The catalogue-notes that accompany Made Kaek’s exhibition,
‘My Playful Journey’, currently showing at the
Ganesha Gallery, suggest that Kaek’s “artistic
expression appears to be influenced by the ‘Art Brut’.
Similar to Dubuffet, Kaek is suspicious of any form of perfectionism.
Kaek freely deploys the spontaneous and obsessive ‘autistic’
energy particular to that of children in his work. Imagination,
fantasy and spontaneity, all typical qualities of children’s
art, are vital to his work”. By ‘regressing’
to a childlike state while creating his paintings, Kaek is
free to explore the daily realities he encounters. He sublimates
and transforms his experiences into a unique visual image.
For Kaek, the creation of art becomes a meticulous effort
to interpret his private life. Thus, he gives his works an
existential significance laden with meanings. Using a crude
language of forms, Kaek’s images connect directly with
the flow of his thoughts and inner-world, and his work is
a ‘travelogue of his amusing and straining journey’
into self-reflection and self-discovery. The strong urge to
narrate his experiences, dreams, hopes and loves explodes
into a wild form of visual expression.
Kaek’s naïve paintings are reminiscent of children’s
drawings. He plays freely with form. Flat images dominate
the pictorial space. There are no optical mannerisms such
as perspective or vanishing points. The figures are simple
constructions that seem to pour out from the innocence of
a child’s imagination. The bright and joyful colors,
combined with the carefree paint splashes and scratches, create
cheerful and amusing images, but, a darker and more somber
theme can be found in Kaek’s works. These darker themes
reflect the artist’s inner-torments and give his works
its particular strength.
Paintings such as ‘Lost Women’, ‘Village
Angels’ or even ‘Self Portrait’, depict
haunting, spectral and ethereal faces and figures that seem
to emerge from a fog of mystery and memory. On the surface,
Kaek’s paintings ‘Balinese Dogs 1 & 2’
appear to be a humorous statement about typical Balinese village
dogs, but, closer study reveals the aggressive stances, the
snarling jaws and bulging eyes that convey an alarming demonic
possession. Again, innocent paintings, such as ‘Fight’
or ‘Dance without Wing’, contain within their
carefree brushwork and rudimentary suggestions of the human
form, the ever present and eternal battle between ‘Good’
and ‘Evil’.
Throughout all his works Kaek has built-up an impressive lexicon
of personal and culturally shared ‘Icons’ or ‘Symbols’.
These signs include skull-like faces, winged monsters with
protruding teeth and horns, and frightening women with pendulous
breasts and bulging eyes. These are the stuff of nightmares.
They are highly sexual and psychological symbols that are
repressed with in all of us. Kaek brings these symbols, from
deep within his psyche, together into one ‘Mythical’
work that dominates the exhibition. Painted in 2004, and as
a reaction to the first Bali Bombing, Kaek’s black and
white, ink on canvas painting, ‘Indonesia Tomorrow’,
is a terrifying image that prophesizes nothing but an apocalyptic
future for Indonesia. Kaek has been able to crystallize his
own demons and torments into a masterwork.
As an artist who expresses his innermost creative impulses
in a spontaneous manner, Kaek can interpret the “real”
world he experiences around him through the myths, legends,
and dreams of the “unreal” world of his imagination.
We recognize his childlike imagery as our own entry into his
unique perspective. At 39 years of age Kaek is an artist who
is only now coming into his full maturity, and he is an artist
who shows much potential.
