Biography gives light, life to Abdul Aziz

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.