Artist Made Gunawan takes on Ganesi with gusto
Artist Made Gunawan takes on Ganesi with gusto
Adrian Smith, Contributor, Jakarta
Made Gunawan's playful, tranquil and optimistic oil paintings
belie his deep-seated anxiety of what is going on around us and
underscores his obsession with peace and reconciliation.
Exasperated and saddened by the "macho" culture that he sees
behind much of the violence and social disharmony across the
archipelago, Made has sought to transform a traditional symbol of
knowledge and portray it in what he believes to be a balanced
light.
On display at the exhibition Images of Ganesi, is 35 of Made's
canvases painted in 2000 and 2001 that all feature "Ganesi", a
feminized version of the Hindu elephant god of knowledge, Ganesa.
As Made sees it, development in intellectual knowledge does
not guarantee the eradication of violence. In fact, as far as he
is concerned, the greater the intellectual knowledge, the more
violence is rationalized, which for him is "knowledge" at its
most disturbing.
His paintings, on offer at between Rp 3 million and Rp 14
million, speak of a balance in knowledge that is drawn from both
our masculine and feminine sides. For Made, macho means rational
thinking, feminine means equalizing that through tolerance and
reconciliation.
His artistic thinking can be attributed to his upbringing.
"As the youngest child in an artistic family, I was always
close to the art world."
Born in Bali in 1973, the up-and-coming artist's father was a
dalang wayang kulit (traditional shadow play puppeteer).
And that supportive background seems to have encouraged him to
broaden his exploration into different art forms.
Educated at the school of fine arts in Denpasar, Bali, he has
also tried his hand at dance, gamelan, sculpture and writing. But
it is his painting that he has now decided to display.
His pastel-colored abstract oil paintings are full of Hindu
symbolism, with frequent references of flowers and Ganesi in a
variety of two-dimensional guises, sometimes appearing more than
once, sometimes on her own.
"Ganesi's paintings are interesting because they hold many
questions. Take Ganesi in White for example. Why is the flower
drooping? What is the relationship between the flower and the
Ganesi figure holding it? Why is the background full of empty
ceramic vases?" said the manager of Hadiprana Gallery, Johanda
Karihadi.
The answer to many of these questions lie in what Made sees as
the bigger picture in Indonesia at the moment. The artist points
out that the flower is drooping because it is not taken care of,
the background vases are empty because they are waiting, hoping
for new flowers.
But the wait seems far from over, as suggested by the title of
another piece Waiting for Godot, which takes its name from the
famous Samuel Beckett play.
And Made's personal favorite, Thinking, depicts a forlorn
Ganesi bathed in shades of blue; a metaphor for what he sees as
the sinking state of the nation.
"It reflects a people wondering 'Why are we suffering from the
floods. What has happened to our country?' It is a representation
of a society that is yearning for change while in the middle of a
multidimensional crisis," he says.
Despite this underlying woe, Made's optimism is visually
represented through a rainbow of subdued colors and the engaging
playfulness of the paintings' characters. And as some of the
titles suggest -- the Laughing series, Baby My Love, I Love This
Flower, Flower of Friendship -- sadness doesn't get much of look
in.
While the world is portrayed as going to pot, Made's paintings
seem to speak in an engaging language of the need for a more
enriching, sustainable approach as an alternative to the
rationalization of violence, which he sees as the all too easy
mainstay of human thinking.
The exhibition Images of Ganesi is on at Hadiprana Gallery, Mitra
Hadiprana building, Jl. Kemang Raya No. 30, Jakarta until March
16. Tel. 7194715/6.