Artist : Anne Van Borselen
Genre : Paintings
Period : September 14 till December 7
Everyday, 10.00AM till 10.00PM
Location : Jenggala Gallery
Jl. Uluwatu II, Jimbaran
Tel: 703311
Anne Van Borselen was born in June 1937, in Surabaya. In the
1960s she studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague,
and in Rotterdam. She comes from a family of painters. Her
mother was Imeria Sunassa, a famous Indonesian artist, and
on her father’s side her great-great-grandfather was
the Dutch painter J.W. Van Borselen (1825-1892), a landscape
painter to King William the Third of The Netherlands. Coming
from such a background it is not surprising that Anne has
a fine appreciation for the History of Western Art, and, she
combines this knowledge with a fresh contemporary outlook.
Anne displays a high level of execution and a confident aesthetic.
She relies on a compulsive creative inspiration while painting,
and her works deliver a fresh immediacy. Anne paints directly
onto rice-paper panels or canvases, using a mixed technique
of acrylics, gouache, oil or ink. Anne’s current exhibition
at Jenggala Gallery is entitled ‘Theater’, and
her notable show includes examples of her abstract and expressive
figurative canvases.
Anne’s painting style and adept technical skill is resolutely
based in classical Western traditions. It is easy to see the
influence of Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci.
In a painting such as ‘In a Silent Way’ Anne creates
a dense background, and out of these expressive layers of
paint emerge the chubby serene faces, starring eyes, and voluptuous
human figures, perhaps in a state of contemplation, or even
ecstasy, which is generally associated with the Renaissance.
The brushwork is spontaneous, yet assured, form is modeled
in a few simple strokes or lines, and the colors are expressive.
She demonstrates a complete mastery of classicism. Anne is
a firm believer in controlled technique. She believes that
artists are not free to experiment until they are confident
in their underlying disciplines. Having mastered basic painting
techniques, Anne suggests, artists are then qualified to explore
abstraction. With its red, pink and orange tones, the painting
‘Send in the Clowns’ creates a striking impact,
and its abstracted human forms appear inspired by Picasso’s
‘Rose’ period. Anne considers that Picasso was
a great master of human anatomy, and abstract forms, the latter
Anne feels, “give the audience freedom to make their
own interpretations about the artwork”.
Anne’s abstract paintings are created in a harmonious
range of colors of ocher, beige, grey and blue. Paint is applied
with dramatic brushstrokes, smears and splashes. Palette-knife
strokes can crisscross the canvases, while fragments of text
or signs are scattered throughout the works. Possibly two
fine examples of her abstract style can be found in the pieces
‘Dance Figure IV’ and ‘Wayang Play’.
Anne’s delineation of the dancers and puppets are superb.
With minimum brushwork she suggests a swaying chest, a rhythmic
arm gesture or the staccato movements of puppets. Her painting
technique is extremely casual. Splashes are left to dribble
across the canvases, indicating the repetitive motions of
the dance and puppet presentations. Capturing the exhilaration
of ‘live’ performance, these works encapsulate
the vitality and ambiance of certain aspects of traditional
Indonesian and Balinese ‘theater’.
However, Anne’s exhibition is not entirely about ‘Theater’
per se. Anne is more concerned with the ‘Theater of
life’. Her paintings attempt to convey stories about
human existence. “Life is a theater” Anne says,
“and every individual is a director for their own life.
Life has many experiences, and there are good and bad moments,
war and peace, drama and happiness”. In her paintings
‘Theater People’ and ‘Opening Procession’
Anne introduces a cast of ‘characters’ diverse
as life itself. Created almost like caricatures, these people
are representative of all walks of life, and suggest the broad
sweep which Anne is trying to convey in her works. Grim episodes
of life are reflected in works such as ‘Memories’,
‘Walk Away’ and ‘Tears from Heaven’,
while in the somber work ‘Trial before Pilate’
the humiliation of Christ by the Romans is shown as ‘Street
Theater’, executed in a very stark ‘German Expressive’
manner. This painting, in particular, displays Anne’s
mastery, and adaptation, of a particularly demanding European
art style.
Although Anne suggests that her work is inspired by the ‘Theater
of Life’, much of the gloominess found in her paintings
is relieved with subtle humor and in mockery. The childlike
and primitive faces and figures appearing in some whimsical
works find their inspiration not in the ‘theater’,
but in the ‘cinema’. Obviously based on specific
movies, in the paintings ‘Flew over the Cuckoos’,
‘Six Days, Seven Nights’ and ‘The Tailor
of Panama’, Anne is implying the ability of the cinema
to reflect life experiences, and, in a way, she is commenting
on the processes of appreciating the cinema, while contemplating
the ramifications which these particular movies may have had
on her subconscious. The most successful work in the exhibition
is her entertaining piece ‘A Night at the Oscars’,
in which an exuberant child-like rendered figure is mesmerized
by the proceedings, perhaps watching them on TV, while a companion
blissfully sleeps through the whole affair. Anne displays
a high degree of significant social commentary in this witty
piece.
By combining the techniques and aims of classical Western
painting, albeit with a sense of irony, and by totally manipulating
our emotional responses, Anne Van Borselen reveals herself
as a sensitive and refined artist at the height of her talents.
Her exhibition displays works that are, in turn, serious,
witty, and, above all, elegant and sophisticated, in an unassuming
manner.
