Artist Agus Suwage's identical revelations
Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta
At a time of widespread bickering and finger-pointing, Agus Suwage's latest works may come as a welcome alternative. "Instead of finding fault with other people, let's go within our own selves and do some introspection," says Suwage.
In his second solo exhibition at Nadi Gallery, Suwage unfolds sixteen paintings in a display titled Channel of Desires.
In what might have been a boring succession of multiple duplication of his own face, the collection in this display, nevertheless, succeeds in attracting the attention.
The way Suwage uses different colors and adds only one or two extra visual gestures of other body parts to the same face on different canvases may just be his mode of saying how little things can have great potential to affect a person, partly or totally - temporarily or forever.
Thus his Blessing-1 and 2 paintings present Suwage's face, with closed eyes, blissfully indulging in what looks like rain drops. The first canvas is dominated by yellow, with the color reflecting on the face, while the second shows the same image, but now in pink.
White dots suggest the raindrops or a gush of blessing coming from above. By letting the hands grasp his throat, and changing the overall color to blackish in combination with red for the dots, the image of bliss transforms into one of stifling hardship, like in Too much heaven.
Spilling milk over one's head may give anyone a shocking surprise. For Agus Suwage, however, it's like having a beauty bath, the way Cleopatra maintained her milky skin. It was enough reason to imagine the royalty and the noble blooded, so he colored the splash in gold and named his face Luxury Gold, while giving the splash a blue color made the title Royal Blue.
Another variation shows three canvases carrying the title No Evil Ltd., with hands alternately covering the eyes, the ears and the mouth in reference of a Buddhist teaching that says to find your inner self it's best not to see, not to hear and not to say anything. If one doesn't, one may end up in frustration cringing up the wall, as expressed in the blue canvas called Reptile where a man is seen, scratching the wall with his fingers in a position that suggests great anguish.
"I was looking at the way a cicak (house lizard) was finding its way," says Suwage. Imagery and imagination can be as simple as that!
If Suwage's works tended to be mostly linked to prevailing injustice and violence, today he seems to give preference to seeking a state of peace and self reflection.
Surrendering to such desires, he channels his emotions to counting his blessings. Perhaps this is the wisest thing to do in certain situations, but in Suwage's case there is also an element of dialectic truth.
He likes to imagine himself as being someone else, or being in a situation different from his own. That is how Jesus in Simbol Biru takes a ballet pose instead of the usual image of crucifixion. In the same vein, the goat to be slaughtered in Qurban is postured as the artist in comical protest.
Meanwhile, Suwage, who tends to detach himself from teachings and preaching, is of the opinion that not all learning has an immediate effect of enlightening. Like a dark room where pitch black gradually becomes lighter, the brain too needs time to absorb. Belajar dari Kegelapan, a canvas, depicting a blackboard with criss-cross text amidst four heads emerging in progressive focus, is about all that.
On a lighter note, Agus shows his obsession with music, one with the old fashioned guitar in flagrant contrast to the advanced digital instrument of today as in Fruity Loops and one going up the ladder in Stairway to Paradiso.
"What is art and what is it not?" asks Suwage in a 5-panel painting in which he pictures himself the way a convict is photographed for identification.
The difference is his half nakedness, with only underpants to cover his vital parts, while the head is hidden under colorful paint in a would-be accentuation. Fragile shows Suwage's body with tattoo-like decorations, which however represents motifs as occurring on specific chinaware, apparently a hint to man's fragile condition. Placing Edvard Munch's famous painting on his tongue like in Ketika Munch Menjerit di Jembatan (When Munch screams on the bridge) might just be a joke.
What, indeed, is art? In the case of Agus Suwage, it's about his face and his body. It starts with taking a picture of himself, in any pose of his liking. Potentially multiplied to a desirable number of copies, it shouldn't take too long for paint and brush to do the "make up" according to what the image should represent. This mode may sprout from recalcitrance, not unlike earlier examples in art history.
As evident from his poster-like works, Agus Suwage is first and foremost a graphic designer who has had 10-years experience with commercial art before he ventured into his current profession as an artist. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and his works hang on the walls of fans at home and abroad.
The Channel of Desires exhibition will run until Oct. 8, 2002, at Nadi Gallery, Jl. Kedoya Raya 53, Jakarta, Phone 58 18 129.