Paintings by Gde Sudarma
At Vincent’s Restaurant, Jl. Raya Candidasa, Candidasa.
Tel. 0363 41368
Modernism is generally taken to be a period of art running
roughly from Fauvism to Abstract Expressionism, and it embodies
a wide range of concepts and ideologies. These ‘Modernist’
concepts have resulted from the re-action of artists to the
complex cultural phenomena of the 20th Century. The attitudes
and issues of the century, which include an ever increasing
knowledge and appreciation of the history of art. Styles in
art get rapidly exhausted. Someone painting today in, perhaps,
a Mondrian style, would be unusual, but an artist looking
and learning and adapting from the brushwork, composition
and color of Mondrian’s art is most common. Balinese
artist Gde Sudarma entitles his exhibition ‘Modern’,
so, this can be seen as a correct description of a body of
work that finds its inspiration in Modernism.
Gde Sudarma was born in June 1972, as the first son of a hard
working family in the Balinese countryside. By selling candy
to his fellow students Gde worked his way through school,
and afterwards he tried to find work on the beach at Lovina,
in the north of Bali. There he met a Dutch couple who recognized
his artistic talent and suggested to him to move to Ubud,
the artistic centre of Bali. Although he never received any
formal artistic training, by trail and error Gde found a personal
way to express his dreams and thoughts. Taking from the decorative
naturalism of the older generation, as well as from the ideals
of the younger one, he developed a style that strikes the
western eye as influenced by Modernism. His earlier works,
shown in the Netherlands in the mid-nineties, expressed romantic
notions connected with Balinese folklore. Since then he has
developed a more mature and universal style, in which less
is shown explicitly, and the sub-text of the image is suggested
or implied. His technique has grown more sophisticated, and
his delight in structuring spaces continues with plenty of
charm. He is able to create personal dream-like realities,
with subtle colors and a fascinating use of light and shades.
Although the scenes he composes are familiar, he has a facility
for pursuing a range of imagery, subject-matter and techniques
which establish a separate and recognizable identity. These
elements are not raw, but have been absorbed into his own
individual style.
I am not adverse to sex in my art, as long as it is done with
a bit of style and panache. In his paintings ‘Mechanic
Boy’ and ‘Working Class Hero 2’, Sudarma
displays a surprising knowledge of ‘gay’ icons.
Working from photographs, these famous ‘gay’ images,
of a motor mechanic and a construction worker, will be instantly
recognized. Painted in meticulous detail, the canvases display
an eerie ‘removed’ and ‘distanced’
quality, yet, Sudarma expands and alters the locations of
these well-known images to investigate the relationship between
‘man and machine’. He depicts this as a highly
charged sexual association, which is placed in a beguiling
surrealistic environment. It is then left to the audience
to decode these inferred links.
A semiotic analysis can also be applied to the paintings ‘Working
Class Hero 3’ and ‘Connection’. Contained
within beautifully constructed geometric grids and patterns,
Sudarma places a collection of semiotic ‘icons’
which together construct a ‘code’ to indicate
a response descriptive of the subject-matter. Whether it may
be an impression of a ‘modern’ man, and a selection
of his personal taste, resulting in a depiction of an urbane
sophisticate, or whether it is a depiction of various ‘icons’
indicating the passage through which a man must travel from
adolescence to adulthood, these works display an extremely
high knowledge of the use of ‘signs’ and ‘indicators’.
Both paintings are very challenging and stimulating works.
It is obvious from Sudarma’s work that his first love
is Surrealism. This is clear in the painting ‘Downtown
Party’ which depicts life as a decadent bacchanal experienced
as fragments of a ‘modern’ abstract movie. Painted
with the same chilling accuracy as in all his works, the disassociated
images in this painting combine to present a fascinating impression
of hedonism. However, the painting ‘Kids Playing’
is a much gentler work. Perhaps inspired by Escher or Magritte,
in this work Sudarma delights with playing with optical illusions,
as children blow bubbles that turn into basket balls.
Finally, in a gesture of pure bravado, Gde Sudarma demonstrates
in his paintings ‘Still Life Kopi’ and ‘Still
Life Tea’ that he is quite capable of tackling ‘traditional’
art themes as well as his own personal symbolism. Both these
canvases are excellent still life studies, which show a remarkable
attention to detail, accompanied with a high degree of composition
and patterning design. However, Sudarma cannot escape the
cold realistic style which appears constantly in his work,
and both these still lives display the removed and icy quality
that we now come to expect from contemporary artists, who
are interested in emotional detachment, solitude and alienation.
As an untrained artist, Gde Sudarma displays in his work an
extraordinary talent to grasp and translate western art styles.
Unite this with his artistic technical skills and the results
are extremely impressive. It is unfair to call Gde Sudarma
‘untrained’. He may have had no formal training,
but, his art has been created through sheer application and
effort. His current work has no reference to Balinese ‘style’,
rather it is a pure distillation of Modernist themes which
he has forged into his own. The influences are recognizable,
but, it is what he has done with them that makes his art vital.
He is really just a very talented artist who happens to be
Balinese. If you find yourself in Candidasa anytime over the
next two months, call into Vincent’s Restaurant and
check-out Gde Sudarma’s exhibition. You will be pleasantly
surprised.
