Paintings by Made Galung Wiratmaja,
at Ganesha Gallery, Four Seasons Resort,
Jimbaran Bay. Tel: 701010.
For Balinese artist Made Galung Wiratmaja silence can be equated
with liberty and an intense spiritual state of being. In his
paintings Made Galung seeks to explore the absence of sound,
or silence. Art that attempts to depict silence can be regarded
as being in a state of pure being, which can be compared to
the Hindu concept of Shunyata. Consciousness without thought.
Throughout the paintings in Made Galung’s exhibition,
‘Silent Nature’, he uses “minimal form and
color to transcend origins, and frees himself and his art
from the background noise we know as everyday life”.
What results is a stunning collection of landscapes. He pares
down the landscape to only a handful of basic elements and
forms, but the econmony that underpins this ‘impression’
of the Balinese landscape manages to convey an untouched wilderness
that exudes an air of calm silence that is wistful, even romantic,
but entirely his own. The sense of stillness is reinforced
by the horizontality of his compositions, which feature two
or three horizontal bands. Solid muted color, either from
the top or the bottom of the canvas, leads the eye into the
picture. The gaze is fixed to the solitude of the landscape.
Human presence is absent. The paintings, for all intended
purposes, are ‘empty’.
The canvas ‘Gunung (Volcano)’ is a typical example
of Made Galung’s work. In this image the contours of
the volcano have been reduced to two overlapping semi-circular
forms, which are placed in the top half of the canvas, and
are framed by two bands of muted green signifying sky and
earth. The starkness of the image suggests silence, but, these
flat areas of color also reduce the image into an inspiring
work of abstracted placement.
However, there is more to Made Galung’s art than an
outstanding ability to create elegant landscape images. Within
Made’s work can also be found two ‘low-key’
political statements. These statements are very subdued. The
painting ‘Bayangan Hijau II (Green Shadow II)’
is an atmospheric landscape created in a soft tonal range
of pale green and blue, yet, the impending sense of doom,
pervading the canvas, suggests the gradual encroachment of
the Balinese landscape by urban development. Perhaps visible
in the background of this work can be seen an intruding city.
Made continually implies in his paintings the systematic destruction
of the Balinese landscape by ruthless urban developers. Also,
in the brown toned canvas ‘Aliran Putih I (White River
I)’, the meandering river gradually gives way to a series
of white paint dribbles. Here, Made is blatantly suggesting
the lack of government initiatives to create water conservation
programs essential in the arid and desolate areas of North
Eastern Bali.
Made Galung Wiratmaja has created an extraordinary exhibition.
On one hand it is a successful evocation of the mystery and
‘silence’ of Balinese landscape, yet, on the other
hand, Made imparts a gentle political criticism that does
not distract from the works. Rather, this commentary instills
the paintings with an amazing restrained strength. Made Galung
Wiratmaja reveals himself as an extremely talented and thought
provoking artist.
Yellow But Not The Sun
Paintings by Michelle Swayne,
at Gaya Art Space, Jl. Raya Sayan, Ubud. Tel: 979252.
Michelle Swayne is an American artist, now resident in Bali.
Throughout her exhibition, ‘Yellow But Not The Sun’,
Michelle shows an ambiguous collection of works which are
filled with tonal angularities and tensions. Michelle’s
art is a process of creating a personal mythology that makes
contact with something universal. A sense of the personal
in an epic human narrative. Her works convey a dream-like
sensibility, an imagined narrative which is not exactly fictional.
Michelle also likes to forgo the ideals of classical beauty
and truth. “If I paint something orange and call it
grass, there’s an added poetic element to the work,
an undetermined relationship”.
The iconography, or mythology, that Michelle is developing
is more than evident in the canvases ‘The Encouragement
of Retardation’ and ‘The Great Adventure Portrait
and Goodbye’. Within these works familiar signs, such
as a wolf and a sheep, and the ubiquitous Polaroid ‘snap’,
stimulate our subconscious to create a free association, or
even a ‘narrative’, out of these discordant and
eclectic mixtures of images. Michelle is relying on the ability
of the viewer to ‘connect-the-dots’, and arrive
at a ‘meaning’ which might be created out of a
metaphor, our own imagination, or the human psyche. Maybe,
even the works suggest a state of heightened sensibility resulting
from the disorganization and ‘poetic’ reorganization
of our lived reality.
As the accompanying catalogue shows, Michelle is also a talented
poet:
Nets cast for yellow eyes, yellow quick,
Anything frail
(yellow but not the sun).
Light stalks low on everything, pale
(blue but not the sky).
Above rocks shelter poles tender lords of
long below
(green, green-
but not the sea).
Out toward fray carry me,
the damned reverie,
all expected nothing free
(red but not to me).
As this poem demonstrates Michelle also likes to play similar
‘mind games’ with the written word. Her poetry
works together with her visual art to carry hints of communication
in a language that is ambiguous but immediate. Perhaps the
most interesting paintings in the show are those such as ‘You
remind me of the mushrooms in hell where one thing stands
for two other things’, wherein the poetic titles create
an irony. Does the text exemplify the paintings, or do the
paintings exemplify the text? It is an intriguing question.
