Paintings by Wayan Suja at Komaneka Gallery,
Monkey Forest Road, Ubud. Tel. 0361 976090.
Balinese artist Wayan Suja was born in Batubulan in December 1975. He trained as an artist at the Indonesian Art Institute, Denpasar, from 1995 to 2001, and he is a contemporary Balinese artist with an unusual vision. In his home in Banjar Tabuh, Gianyar, Wayan is a committed member of the local Banjar, in-which he plays the Reong in the Banjar’s Gamelan Orchestra. With the Banjar’s time-consuming routines of social and ritualistic obligations, Wayan finds that he has little time for painting. “I have to participate wholeheartedly in these kinds of activities”, he says, “this is the source of harmony in Banjar life”. However, Wayan admits that he enjoys the rites and ceremonies and has nothing to complain about, despite it taking up most of his time. Wayan is serious about his role in the Banjar, and he sees himself as no different to any other of its members. He is committed to putting his best efforts towards becoming an accepted Banjar member, who obeys the rules of tradition, religion and culture. Therefore, when the Banjar’s rituals or community activities are finished, finding the time to paint, for Wayan, is a matter of “stealing and managing” his considerably short time. “To paint, and become an artist, within the communal context of Banjar loyalty”, Wayan maintains, “is a piece of luxury. Popularity and success as a painter could be meaningless if one were a social invalid, excluded from the Banjar and its activities. On the contrary, success only gains some real meaning when one can share it with one’s community”.
With his commitment to the Banjar, it is interesting that Wayan Suja’s previous works, before his current exhibition, were concerned with criticizing contemporary Balinese life and traditions. In his previous paintings Wayan created a world opposite from his Banjar reality. The paintings were full of contradictions, paradoxes, and even disharmony around matters of self, his surroundings, family, and even Balinese society in general. Wayan’s art was concerned with the unavoidable changes in the Balinese social structure. They were the works of a young man, full of restlessness and ideas. As he matured as an artist, Wayan began to focus onto areas pertaining to ‘Balinese Identity’. He began questioning this ‘Balinese Identity’, and started to create paintings that were a visual investigation of ‘consumerism lifestyles’. A lifestyle that was ceaselessly whittling down productive and independent Balinese values and thoughts.
In his current exhibition, ‘Plush-Tick’, Wayan Suja continues his studies into a Balinese consumerism lifestyle. “Bali is, and will always change, and so does her people”, Wayan has said. “Creative and productive Balinese have become consumers. Ceremony materials, for instance, use imported fruits, and accessories for these ceremonies are more and more the products of mass production”. According to Wayan Suja “Balinese people could still sustain all the elements that they used previously, if they wanted to. Malls, which are now spreading all over Bali, have also contributed to change. Plastic, too, is an important tick in the box of becoming modern and plush”.
Wayan Suja presents a series of large portraits of Balinese faces. However, these faces are all covered in wrinkled transparent plastic. Not ‘real’ plastic, but, rather, a superbly rendered illusion of painted plastic. The plastic is like a veil, or a garment, or even a holy shroud, and the intentions of this plastic wrapping can change from painting to painting, but, the overall impression remains a criticism of overt Balinese consumerism. ‘Portrait of the Past’ depicts a Balinese man dressed in a traditional manner. The transparent, glossy plastic wrapping seems to imply an idealized pre-packaged retailed contemporary lifestyle, available at the recommended price. However, ‘Plastic Bag Exotica’ shows a typically beautiful young Balinese girl. Covered by a plastic bag from the department store Matahari, the implication is that her beauty and desirability may well be beyond an average Balinese’s financial income. Like much in Bali, beauty comes at an exorbitant price. ‘Silent Face’ depicts a poor old man. Perhaps beaten down by years of toil. Here, a barrier of plastic prevents him from partaking in or, maybe, even understanding the ‘joys’ of modern consumerism, while, in the canvas ‘Komang Kenyem Smiles’, a young boy appears eager to break through a veil of plastic to embrace Bali’s new tantalizing consumerism.
Throughout his works Wayan Suja suggests that for many Balinese, who are advocating consumerism, there is a feeling of advancement. By implication these Balinese people probably feel more modern, and of course culturally richer. Finally, Wayan displays five canvases, like ‘Glow Above Greenish Hue’, in-which the ‘enemy’ plastic is shown in five different tonal ranges. The paintings are presented as geometric compositions, and reveal the play of light crinkled transparent plastic is able to achieve. The elegance of the paintings reinforces the external appearance but ‘false’ attractions of plastic.
Apart from the superb painting technique Wayan Suja displays in his works, his art makes some very pertinent comments. The exhibition is an important sign of changing Balinese values. For many Balinese there is a mounting feeling of ‘I shop therefore I am. I wear branded items therefore I am. I consume therefore I am’. As his exhibition attests, Wayan Suja never ceases to express his anxiety to his Balinese compatriots, who are perhaps more easily lulled to celebrate Bali’s new consumerism, rather than question it.
