Paintings by Joko Sulistiono and I Made Gunawan
at Ganesha Gallery, Four Seasons Resort, Jimbaran Bay. Tel: 701010.
Two young Indonesian artists are featured in the latest exhibition at the Ganesha Gallery in Jimbaran Bay. Both artists display a strong penchant for dream-like visions that are deeply rooted in their respective ethnic heritages. However, the title of the exhibition, ‘Moving Dreams’, is cleverly open to two different interpretations. In the work of Joko Sulistiono his ‘dreams’ can be seen as deeply ‘moving’ emotional reactions to Indonesia’s current cultural and political predicaments, whereas the hallucinatory ‘dreams’ presented in the canvases of I Made Gunawan, are firmly rooted in color and ‘movement’ and legendary Hindu folklore. Of approximately the same age, both artists are graduates of different branches of the Indonesian Art Academy. Both have a prime interest in the female form, either as a signifier of innocence or as a temptress, and both show a remarkable facility for pursuing a range of personal and cultural imagery, subject matter and techniques with which to establish a separate and immediately recognizable identity. Together they show different sides of Indonesian lived culture, as perceived from the perspective of two very different contemporary artists.
The majestic and almost theatrical imagery seen in the paintings of Joko Sulistiono, who hails from the royal kingdoms of central Java, displays sumptuously dressed palace dancers and shadow puppets. These subjects usually appear against fields of vivid primary color, and feature scratchy textures, and large areas of discreetly painted ‘empty’ canvas. Starting with the painting ‘Java Smile’, in this work Sulistiono presents a collection of images including a beautiful Javanese princess, an elegant white horse, and vases of extravagant floral arrangements. These disassociated images, found within the canvas, combine to create an impression reminiscent of an elegantly posed antique photograph, and suggest a romanticized and nostalgic heritage. An emotional yearning for a noble but lost past. Similarly, in the works ‘Puppet Kids’ and ‘To The Future’, we are presented with a line of Javanese dancers and Wayang puppets, in the far left-hand side of the canvases, staring out at the distant and indistinct skyscrapers of a modern city, wrapped in a mysterious cloud-like mist. The paintings imply the inevitable changes which must occur to traditional Indonesian values with the encroachment of modern consumerism, urbanism and industrialization. In another painting, enigmatically entitled ‘Wealth, Woman, Throne’, we see a beautiful young crowned girl with a horse on the left-hand side of the image, and the coat of arms of the Sultan of Yogyakarta against a brilliant red field on the right. Once again the implications are of a glorious and noble heritage in danger of being submerged by ‘modernism’. Joko Sulistiono’s dramatic paintings evoke a beguiling, nostalgic ‘dream-like’ quality, yet they also convey a subtle commentary on the challenges to be faced by traditional cultural values in a continually changing Indonesia.
The paintings of the Balinese artist, I Made Gunawan, are clearly about color, movement, music and dance. This is not surprising since Gunawan is also a performance artist. Within the hallucinatory ‘dream-like’ paintings which Gunawan presents in his portion of the exhibition, audiences familiar with traditional Balinese theatre will notice a similarity, in the simple story depicted in the paintings, with the rites of the initiates and devotees of the demi-goddess Calonarang. She is an awesome sorceress whose tale is told in a 14th century Javanese Hindu romance. Gunawan commences his narrative, or ‘dream-story’, with the canvas ‘Playing Flute’. In this work Gunawan begins his explorations into movement, sound and female sensuality. Beneath the light of a full moon, Calonarang can be seen clad only in a diaphanous sarong. We feel her body swaying with the seductive sound of a bamboo flute, on which she plays. Perhaps entranced by her music, in the paintings ‘Playing Drum’ and ‘Moving with Rebab’, other musicians pick up their instruments and follow her lead. Building up a wild and frantic beat. Finally, in Gunawan’s luscious painting ‘Dance’, a group of undulating female dancers appear. Eyes closed, as if in a trance, and with their long hair freely swaying, they dance gracefully in homage to the all powerful deity. With broad sensual brushstrokes and with undulating erotic lines and forms, Made Gunawan creates snatches of images from this traditional Hindu story, which emerge like moments from a feverish and phantasmagorical ‘dream’.
As an exhibition ‘Moving Dreams’ is actually quiet challenging. It presents a very strong contrast between the styles and contents of both artists, subtly linked through the theme of ‘dreamscapes’. On one hand there is the soft and delicate painting technique of Joko Sulistiono, who builds up his canvases with small and incisive brushstrokes, compared with the flamboyant and decorative painting gestures of Made Gunawan. Sulistiono’s work is about tranquility and reflection, infused with an atmosphere of nostalgia and affection for traditional Javanese traditions and culture, while Gunawan is involved with vibrant depictions of movement and sensuality. Then, there are the pertinent questions raised by Joko Sulistiono in regard to the future of Indonesian culture and values, contrasted with the historical theatrical Javanese Hindu myth presented in Made Gunawan’s religious world. The past is contrasted with the future. The ethereal with the corporal. Reality with fantasy. Ganesha Gallery presents an extremely invigorating exhibition.
