Marking changes in the metropolis<\/p>\n
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Like a social scientist carrying out full-blown research,
\nCanadian artist Ken Pattern has in the past 17 years witnessed
\nthe massive transformation of Jakarta from a collection of
\ntightly knit neighborhoods into a huge metropolis.<\/p>\n
He has documented the changeover in his renowned, meticulously
\ndrawn, portrait-like, black-and-white paintings and stone
\nlithographs.<\/p>\n
Armed with camera, pen and ink, Pattern has witnessed with his
\nsteely eyes that what is now a district of glass-and-steel
\nconstruction was once clusters of sprawling, traditional housing,
\nor kampongs.<\/p>\n
The transformation was so immense that it subliminally
\naffected the style of his art, which has also changed over the
\nyears.<\/p>\n
As one of thousands of foreigners who made their way into this
\narchipelago, Pattern, who arrived in the country in 1988,
\nunderwent a difficult time adjusting to its tropical climate. His
\nearly works dealt with such climatic confusion.<\/p>\n
His surrealism-tinged drawings, produced in the late 1980s,
\ncarried images of icebergs melting in the tropical paradise.<\/p>\n
And, like millions of tourists who were enthralled by the
\ncountry's idyllic nature, Pattern was also captivated by it and
\nhis later works portrayed beautiful scenery he discovered on road
\ntrips.<\/p>\n
The routine persisted until 1991, when Pattern started to
\nrealize that a lot had changed in a place where he based his
\nartistic work, Jakarta.<\/p>\n
At first, he was struck by the stark contrast that prevailed
\nin the capital. \"I lived in a gated and walled house with a
\nswimming pool inside. But outside the wall, it was just a regular
\nkampong and my house was like that of a rich person,\" Pattern
\nsaid in an interview with The Jakarta Post.<\/p>\n
Pattern and his wife Helen Vanwel, once a consultant with a
\nprivate consulting company, then lived on Jl. Bangka, an affluent
\nneighborhood in the vicinity of Kemang, South Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Driven by the stark contrast, Pattern went out to explore more
\nof Jakarta and later found out that by the end of the 1980s,
\nJakarta was just a large kampong made up of small neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
\"I still remember that what is now known as the Sudirman
\nCentral Business District (SCBD) -- just behind the Jakarta
\nPolice headquarters -- was just a huge kampong,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Pattern, who has remained a Canadian national, recalled that
\nthere were not a lot of tall buildings along Jl. Sudirman. \"At
\nthat time, I thought that Jakarta was not a city, it was just a
\nhuge collection of kampongs,\" he said.<\/p>\n
He then decided to draw paintings of the kampongs by first
\ntaking photographs and rough sketches of the scenes. \"I took the
\nsketches and the photographs back to Canada so that I could do
\nthe drawing there. But when I returned here, all had changed. The
\nplaces are all empty and in some places there were tall
\nbuildings,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Witnessing the rapid change, a sense of loss crept into his
\nmind. \"The neighborhood had been there for so many years, but it
\nwas taken away and a new Jakarta was being developed,\" he said.
\nPattern had to rush in his work as the view was disappearing so
\nquickly.<\/p>\n
The drawings that later came to fruition depicted the high-
\nrise buildings of Jakarta standing majestically above the tree
\ncanopy, and rows of shanty towns below it, mostly in black-and-
\nwhite.<\/p>\n
One of his famous portraits of the loss of the city's
\ninnocence was the picture of a cow tied to a fence of a plot of
\nland surrounded by banana trees, with one of Jakarta's famous
\nlandmarks, the Wisma Mulia building, looming large from a
\ndistance.<\/p>\n
The unchecked obliteration of the Jakarta's kampongs came to
\nan abrupt halt during the financial crisis, which hit the country
\nin mid-1997.<\/p>\n
\"Everything stopped and nothing really happened. In fact
\npeople started telling me that I should produce drawings to show
\nthat nothing happened in this city,\" Pattern said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n
The advent of the crisis also marked another transformation in
\nPattern's style.<\/p>\n
Although he had lived here for over a decade by the time the
\ncrisis struck, he still did not fully grasp the true nature of
\nthe Indonesian people and their culture.<\/p>\n
\"The longer I stay here, the more I don't know what is going
\non. Take the flow of traffic for example: To go from point A to
\npoint B, you have to go through R and X, there is never a
\nstraight line,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Dealing with the confusion once again, Pattern returned to his
\nsurrealistic roots and started using a labyrinth as a symbol. One
\nof his lithograph portrays Java as an island, with an intricate
\nmaze connecting one spot with another. He also used it in a
\ndrawing that aimed to describe the streets of Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Another Javanese trait that has bewildered Pattern is the
\nflexibility of its people -- a penchant to bend the law and
\nregulations to reach an objective.<\/p>\n
\"In the West, people are so concerned about goals their
\nthinking becomes linear. They are so concerned about what is on
\nthe horizon they don't see where their feet are standing. Here,
\npeople are interested in the process and how to get there,
\nbecause by the time they get to their destination, it may have
\nchanged anyway,\" Pattern said, whimsically.<\/p>\n
Indonesians don't see what is on the horizon because they
\nare so busy about where their feet are, he said.<\/p>\n
Born 62 years ago in New Westminster, Canada, Pattern
\ngraduated from Emily Carr School of Art & Design, majoring in
\nprintmaking. The incisive social critique in his art may have
\nbeen nourished when he took a sociology course at Simon Fraser
\nUniversity, Vancouver.<\/p>\n
He later found that stone lithography was his passion, despite
\nthe fact that the art was fairly complex and demands a great deal
\nof skill.<\/p>\n
Moving to Jakarta in late 1988 -- after years of living in
\nBeijing, which he called artistically `dry'-- Pattern never
\nforesaw that he would fall for Indonesia and spend a great deal
\nof time here, even embracing laid-back Indonesian demeanor.<\/p>\n
\"I have probably embraced it (the easy-going attitude) more
\nthan I think I do. When I returned to Canada, I carried it with
\nme and it worked there,\" he said.<\/p>\n
And after years of living in the \"melting iceberg\", Pattern
\ncould not tell which was his first home, Indonesia or Canada. \"I
\nthink Indonesia is more in my blood than I think; even if I'm not
\nphysically in Indonesia it's still going to be inside me,\" he
\nsaid.<\/p>",
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