Agoes sends noble messages through calligraphic art
Agoes sends noble messages through calligraphic art
By K. Basrie
JAKARTA (JP): Agoes Noegroho did not spend his time playing marbles or other traditional games during his childhood.
Instead, he searched for fragments of broken clay roof tiles and tree branches, using them to sketch rough drawings on the sidewalk and in his yard in Semarang, Central Java.
"I used my hands, fingers and feet as makeshift erasers until all of my fingers were infected," Agoes recalled in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post at his gallery in Pamulang, south of Jakarta.
The legacy of his first forays into art are found today in Agoes' reputation as one of the foremost artists of Islamic calligraphic art in the nation.
Agoes' talent was noticed early by his teachers and he was always top in his class for drawing from elementary through senior high schools.
"I probably have the talent from my father, who was an army soldier talented in painting, and my mother, who was known locally for her skill at making up wedding couples," said Agoes.
At the urging of his teachers, the 11-year-old Agoes held his first solo exhibition at the Sompok elementary school in Semarang.
His friends and their relatives wanted to buy the works. "I always returned their money because the amount was too small even to cover the price of the frames," he remembers.
He made his first lucrative sale during junior high school. The painting, measuring one meter high by two meters, was purchased by a mother of one of his friends.
"It was a good deal, and I spent the money on buying a Ricoh SLR camera," Agoes says.
He says he never used cheap paints or materials. "That's why I always used my father's collection which he brought from overseas."
After holding a series of solo shows and joining several group exhibitions in his hometown, Agoes packed up his works to join a group art exhibition in Bonn, Germany, and Marseilles, France, in 1974. He was still a 17-year-old high school student.
He went on to study fine arts at the Bandung Institute of Technology in West Java. During university, he exhibited his works at the Art Asia Gallery in Switzerland in 1980.
Early days
Agoes' early works mostly involved abstracts, details of nature and portraits of human figures. In 1979, his professor, the late Achmad Sadali, gave him a book on khat, or Arabic calligraphic art, which was to change his artistic direction.
"When handing me the book, Pak Sadali told me to consider painting khat depicting verses from the Holy Koran and the Hadist (Prophet Mohammad's sayings)," he said.
He respected Sadali as a model teacher and decided to consider his advice. Moreover, Agoes had loved reciting the Koran since he was a little boy and would take a leading role in Islamic teaching activities while studying in Bandung. He was also a graduate of the renowned Suryalaya Islamic teaching school in West Java.
With the books, he crafted experiments to harmonize his skills in modern art paintings, his understanding of the holy verses and the abstract concept of the universe.
"In the beginning of working on the Koran calligraphy, I found it hard to express my ideas due to fears of mistakenly adopting holy verses in paintings," he says.
"But, it's over now as I have learned that painting calligraphy is the way I perform dzikrullah (remembrance to God) to learn to love Him," he said.
Before devoting himself to art, Agoes made a detour into business and joined the diversified Bimantara business group for more than four years until 1991. He spent two years as art director at private television station RCTI, one of the group's subsidiaries.
His work assignments included devising the logo of the station and the seal of the prestigious Nusa Dua Graha International hotel in Bali.
"I quit the group after I realized that I was not a typical employee who enjoyed spending time inside the office," Agoes says.
He had decided to earn his living as an artist depicting calligraphic verses from the Koran.
Noble message
He endeavored to make his works sparkle with noble messages of the holy verses and human spiritual yearning to get closer to God.
His first calligraphic work was bought by a close friend in Bandung for Rp 100,000 (US$41.15). "His wife was so mad when she knew that he spent a third of his salary to buy the painting," Agoes says. "But now his wife will not let anybody, including me, buy the piece at any price."
Agoes' output of Islamic calligraphy has now reached around 300 works. These range in size, with average prices ranging from Rp 750,000 to Rp 25 million.
One of his pieces received a bid of Rp 1.07 billion at a charity auction.
The distinguished owners of his works include President Soeharto, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei, King Hussein of Jordan and many ministers and business figures, both in Indonesia and overseas.
Agoes said President Soeharto has occasionally given the art as gifts to his counterparts.
The management of Medinah Oberoy Hotel in Saudi Arabia purchased several of Agoes paintings to decorate the hotel.
"I've been informed that one of the paintings was bought by Sultan Bolkiah while he was staying at the hotel," Agoes said.
Agoes' calligraphic works have been displayed in various single and group exhibitions since 1992 in Jakarta and Saudi Arabia.
"Most of my paintings are already listed in a catalog," he said.
Agoes vowed to keep on working with paints.
"I'll continue painting to earn living as long as the themes aren't against the rules of my religion," he said. "And I won't sell any of my works at any price if they will be placed in places such as nightclubs."
His artistic ability appears to have been passed on to his children. Married to Siti Nurhayati, a lecturer at Stekphi college in Jakarta, Agoes says his sons, Bagus Muhammad Nur, 12, and Agung Muhammad Soleh, 10, already display an exceptional talent for painting.