Biography gives light, life to Abdul Aziz

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

Abdul Aziz: The Artist and His Art
Mary Northmore-Aziz
Mariz Foundation, November 2005
240 pages

Launched on Nov. 26 in Ubud, Bali, Abdul Aziz: The Artist and His Art comes as a cool breeze on a sultry day. Diverting from art books with a typically dry theoretical content, this book contains both personal and professional tales of the Indonesian painter.

The first part, arranged chronologically or according to important events, reads like an album in which memories come to life in anecdotal narratives recounted by Mary Northmore-Aziz -- the artist's other half during the last 20 years of his life -- and by friends, relatives, or those who once came across the artist's path.

Illustrated by photographs, this part renders an endearing picture of the artist, illuminated by notes from his personal journal and his first sketches and doodles.

Abdul was born in 1928 to a father who was a public school headmaster in Purwokerto, as well as a teacher of religion and a shadow-puppet master, and to a mother who was proficient in batik-making -- a woman who instilled in him a feeling of nationalism through lullabies and songs banned by the Dutch colonial rulers of the time.

Abdul seems to have been a born artist. Ever since he was a little boy, even before he became aware of art, he was already dreaming of colored pencils, although he had never seen one.

His mother had to explain to him they had appeared in his dreams, then had to elaborate upon the term "dream". He was always drawing, or wanting to draw.

Although his first goal was to study music, which he loved and later pursued, he enrolled initially in law school, studied social and political sciences, then ultimately became a student at the Indonesian Fine Arts Academy in Yogyakarta. Later, he won a scholarship to study art in Italy, and entered a period that was to be pivotal in his becoming the artist he wanted to be.

From this kaleidoscope of memories emerges the picture of an artist who was also a beloved friend -- one who often baby-sat for his friends' children -- a merrymaker who loved to drive around in his little Fiat Topolino with friends squeezed in. He was a person who excelled in human relationships, mingling with people of various cultural and national backgrounds.

Aside from being a painter, Abdul was also a musician and a sculptor who created a sculpture of Jaury, the only child of General M. Jusuf who had died of tetanus, and the Puputan Monument commemorating the Puputan Incident of 1906.

Yet it is the image of the foreign woman who pops up in his sketches and paintings that draws our attention, as it bears a likeness to the woman he would marry when he was 60 years old. He must have had visions of her before he had even met her, and when he did, he must have known "this is her".

The pair of panels titled Magnetic Attraction, which embellish the book cover, are dedicated to Northmore-Aziz, whom he married in 1988, four years after they first met. Northmore-Aziz was then 39, a librarian who had worked in various parts of the world.

The second part of the book is dedicated to Abdul's art, highlighted by an excellent essay by no less than Dr. Astri Wright, associate professor of the Department of Art History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, and who is widely known for her insightful reviews of Indonesian art and artists.

As she notes in her essay, "It was when I began to study Aziz's oeuvre as a whole -- studying his subject, styles and strategies more closely -- that I began to see Aziz's masterful and subtle ways of working more clearly."

Her description of his work could also read as a profile of the artist himself: "Aziz's main concern in his mature work revolved around the quiet drama of interpersonal relations as expressed in a broad range of emotional, and to some degree, intellectual, responses."

She continues, "Two modes characterize Aziz's paintings simultaneously: monumentality and intimacy. Abdul Aziz was a virtuoso when it came to capturing a fleeting moment in some exchange of energy between two people."

Astri's reflections on particular paintings blend professional and technical knowledge, but also comprise philosophical, historical and poetical content, matching all that emanate from Abdul's oeuvre.

One important feature of the book that deserves mention is that none of the 247 plates or sketches reproduced in it found their way into print through financial contributions, as is the current common practice in publications on art.

This is in keeping with the artist's artistic and personal integrity, said Northmore-Aziz, who authored the book and traveled the world to collect comprehensive information and stories on her late husband.

This title can be obtained via www.artistabdulaziz.com or by telephone at (0361) 975485. A Jakarta launch is scheduled for early 2006.