Amri Yahya, a batik trailblazer
Ridlo Aryanto, Contributor, Yogyakarta
Of the countless letters that Amri Yahya has received, the most memorable was the one from Fuad Hassan, then Indonesia's ambassador to Egypt.
In his very poetic letter dated June 1976, Fuad offered generous praise for Amri's batik works exhibited at the embassy's gallery in Cairo.
"It is obvious from your paintings that you were a child of the river and the steep mountain slopes, of the sun and the moon, the plants and grasses. You welcome life from the banks of the Musi River and now even in the valley of the Nile, people are living witnesses of your life-filled works." Fuad wrote in his letter.
"Indeed I love very much my home village in Ogan Ilir. My house is close to the lowlands, rivers and swamps. That's why most of my paintings, especially batik, have nature as a theme," said Amri, who was born in Sukaraja, Ogan Ilir, southern Sumatra, on Sept. 29, 1939.
He studied art at the Indonesian Arts Academy (ASRI, now renamed ISI) in Yogyakarta.
Amri aspired to be a painter as a child. In 1956 he went to Yogyakarta after telling his mother, Zaenab, that he would like to study the art of batik.
It has gone down in the history of Indonesian art that Amri, out of his deep love for traditional batik art, produced in the 1960s and 1970s, large-sized paintings in the batik medium.
His experiments with batik, which he calls the "black and white" technique won recognition as his original characteristic style, particularly in the perspective of contemporary batik painting.
His black and white batik paintings were first exhibited in the Nong Gallery, San Francisco in 1974. To boost the level of Indonesia's batik, Amri sold his paintings at Rp 5 million a piece and found buyers.
Affandi, one of Indonesia's painting maestros, once commented on Amri's achievement with his batik art.
"Now Amri has successfully placed himself as one of Indonesia's contemporary artists. Amri has become the pioneer for the development of Indonesia' batik painting art," Kompas daily quoted Affandi as saying in its Aug. 10, 1976 edition.
Even in the 1970s, the history of Indonesia's art noted that batik paintings with a thematic tendency influenced by Amri's style experienced a boom. Many Indonesian artists, well reputed or just novices, copied his style.
Many of them signed their paintings with different versions of Amri's name, such as Amrin Yahya or Amir Yahya.
If you visit the art village at Taman Sari or Prawirotaman, Yogyakarta, we can see some paintings showing Amri's style in a number of galleries.
In fact, the painter made a switch in his art principle without reason. "Apart from my curiosity, I always cherished my ambition to innovate batik... after I realized every time I painted something realist, I felt that I was always repeating things and got bored. I often painted series of works under the title of Lebak or Lebung," said Amri, who is also a visiting professor at Iowa University in the U.S.
Interestingly, apart from being established in the batik painting world, Amri is also a very dedicated teacher. In Yogyakarta, he has been teaching since 1967 at Yogyakarta State University (formerly Teachers' Training Institute), ISI and the Indonesian Islamic University as well as Sunan Kalijaga State Institute for Islamic Studies.
He also taught batik art at Oklahoma State University (1974) and became a visiting professor at Iowa University in 1986. In recognition for his strong dedication to teaching over a span of 35 years, Amri was endowed with a honorary doctorate degree, a degree rarely earned by other artists in Indonesia, from the Yogyakarta State University in May 2001.
On Nov. 2, 2002, Amri was named professor of art education at the School of Language and Art at Yogyakarta State University.
"Really, I have never imagined that finally I will become professor. For me, painting and teaching are both a manifestation of religious services and a dedication to humanity," said Amri, who has four children from his marriage with Sud Sri Susamti.
With an outstanding reputation and his work as a professor, what other hobbies or goals might Amri still aspire to?
"I long to see Indonesia with a proper national gallery. My dream is that each provincial capital has an art gallery. The National Gallery in Jakarta, like a mirror reflecting the face of the Indonesian art, shows only one eye, instead of the whole face," he said.