Carrasco's latest `children' at the World Trade Center

By Sean Cole

JAKARTA (JP): There is nothing in this world like the work of Jorge Carrasco except this entire world.

Yesterday, Carrasco entered his 75th year of life and what better way to celebrate than a gala opening of his most recent works at the World Trade Center.

From now until May 25, the public may visit the Center and witness works that are the self-proclaimed culmination of the cosmos, the earth, the vital energies of sensuality and eroticism. All of which the artist claims are the materials of his labor, two years in Indonesia, 75 years of life and experience and an integral, almost divine gift of observation and artistry: an ability to render the invisible as though its dimensions were as clear as a tree's.

When Carrasco is asked about his artistic background and training, he might say that he had another life before this one and thus possesses even more experience than the vast amount of living he has done since May 4, 1919.

Born in Lapaz, Bolivia, Carrasco did not enjoy looking at books or playing with toys as a child. Instead he chose to run wild through the mountains and valleys, visiting its inhabitants: the Hiawatha Indians who first taught him how to make figures from clay.

They would teach him of their beliefs, that a drop of water contained all the energies used to make up the universe, that there was more involved in the creation of sculpture than just physical structure and line.

With the Hiawatha, Carrasco first discovered, even at this young age, that he enjoyed making figures out of materials from the Earth -- as well as, he claims, materials from the cosmos.

The latter he defines as the vital sensual and erotic energy that breathes life into all things, that allows for creation and birth and rebirth, the redistribution of energy.

Supreme animism

It is with these roots that Carrasco is able to truly envelope himself within the depth and scope and richness of the Indonesian terrain, the Indonesian people and the supreme animism found in all parts of the nation.

Carrasco first came to Indonesia to visit his daughter and her husband on a six-month holiday. But Carrasco can go nowhere without his work and one can imagine that the lush tropical foliage and vegetation, the skies and sights of Margalan were more than enough food for Carrasco's insatiable palette.

In fact, it is this idea of consuming his object that truly sums up Carrasco's artistic process. When venturing out on long walks amongst the jungle surrounding his daughter's home, Carrasco brought no sketchbooks with him. He did not merely copy down the basic lines and shapes of the trees and the fields but rather, as he likes to say, would "eat" the tree, bring it home with him and spit it out later onto his easel.

At that time, he might paint only a single stroke but within that stroke exists every last detail he witnessed: the leaves, the pattern of the bark, the life force of nature, etc. Because of this method, Carrasco's paintings, as the inaugurator of the exhibit says, are "not obvious."

Continual energy

Carrasco does not deal in classical realism. Rather, he wishes to share with his viewers a direct line into what we sense when we allow ourselves to view nature, and the world around us, honestly. The experience is deeply moving and quieting, charging and transcendent, and may actually supply us with continual energy, an energy that allows us to create and fully love.

So when approached by viewers that ask why his trees and his faces bear no details, no distinctive leaves or features, Carrasco replies that every last detail of what he saw is there, that he has reproduced the cosmic dimensions of the tree, the whole tree rather than just one leaf at a time.

"You just have to know how to look at it," he tells them.

Indeed, if you approach Carrasco's paintings and sculptures in search of physical details and accurate physical representation, you are selling yourself, the artist and his work, short. You are missing out because within each line of every painting, each curve of every single sculpture contained within the massive halls of the World Trade Center, are infinite details of what causes us to react the way we do when viewing and experiencing the world.

The truth is that all of these details are there. They are perhaps more apparent in Carrasco's work than they would be in a photograph or realistic presentation of the same objects. For when walking through the half of the Center's lobby that houses the paintings, one is met with the sensation of walking through Indonesia's bountiful, rural vegetation, being enveloped by a surrounding sunset, looking out among harvest fields and their mountains beyond, standing under the onset of the most foreboding storm.

There are miracles in these works -- miraculous techniques, at times explosive, at times quiet and painstaking -- which so wholly capture and embrace the rhythm and haunting, ancient ghosts of the Indonesian landscapes.

Those of us who are foreigners will be reminded again and again of our first morning in Indonesia, of standing in awe of the strangeness and originality of what we had entered, truly brought out of our skulls.

How to look

Yes, one does need to know how to look at Carrasco's paintings but it is not difficult to learn this. There is no trick, one does not have to force oneself to see a certain way but rather will feel strongly compelled, by every picture and stare and probe.

There are huge exclamatory summations of the Indonesian elements, flanked by smaller scenes of the women at the marketplace, a man on a stair, a woman gazing deeply into the viewer's mind. There are a few less than 75 paintings and they are, in fact, hung quite snugly, right up next to each other.

This assists in giving one an impression both of how prolific Carrasco is and of the intimate relation between the works and the artist, and thus the works and themselves. These are not simply paintings but real windows into the experience of Indonesia. There are rhythms and overflowing spiritual energy -- an energy that gives Carrasco the same feeling as he had during his childhood in Bolivia.

Carrasco believes that, in ancient times, South America and Indonesia were actually very close together and perhaps even part of the same land mass. He claims that the women wear their hair the same way here as in Bolivia. The eyes that gaze at him are the same. The complexion and appearance of the people he sees day to day remind him of the characters of his childhood.

So these things exalt and move him to utilize that refreshed sense of energy and "cosmic material." But Indonesia and Bolivia are also different enough to keep him challenged and interested. The climate is different and the light is very, very different.

Give birth

Carrasco feels that he "gives birth" to his paintings as opposed to simply producing them. This idea is very much linked with one of the central philosophies that governs his life. "One plus one is three," he says "Not two, but three." By this he means that when two things are combined they create a third thing, and that this, in fact, is the central rule of the universe. A man and a woman come together and create a child, an artist and his materials come together and create the work. Inside male and female energy, he says, exists everything in the universe.

His sculptures exemplify this idea even more clearly. All of the sculptures in this exhibit are clearly figurative but, again, Carrasco is not interested in representing a realistic portrait of one person or another.

Just as he is seeking, in his paintings, to show the presence of the leaves and villagers as opposed to just their physical dimensions, in his sculptures he takes this endeavor one step further.

There is a story that Carrasco tells of the great Russian/Armenian mystic/philosopher George Gurdjieff. Carrasco early on in life, emigrated to France and adopted it as his home.

He says there is a certain place in France in which you can find a fountain. In this fountain, there rests a stone that seems to call to one and even give one goose bumps as one passes. This, he says, is where Gurdjieff is buried.

Carrasco's sculptures work the same way. When in the portion of the Center's lobby that houses them, one will feel more presence from the sculptures themselves than from the other visitors. It is hard to shake the sensation, in fact, that as one looks away from a piece, it is moving of its own accord.

This is because all of these works are charged with the "cosmic" energy that powers their artist. Though they do not possess a heart, nor lungs, nor skeleton, nor brain, the sculptures do possess the vital life-force, the crucial sensual and erotic energy that causes all of these organs and fibers to work.

Two beings

The fact that many of Carrasco's sculptures appear to be two beings, lovers, entwined, is by no means an accident or a sentimental artistic statement. It goes back to the central philosophy mentioned above: "1+1=3."

A man and a woman become one being and with their love energy they create a third. Some of these sculptures are almost shockingly precise in achieving the seemingly impossible: offering a tangible representation for something as invisible, yet as all-consuming, as love.

The best example of this is Ysil and Sunu where one feels as though one is witnessing the creators of love itself, the creators of all life as we know it. Here, as with other sculptures -- Puspa, which is at once both maternal and sensual, and Atiwi, which gives one the impression of true muscle curvature, taut in fruitful, sensual labor -- one may not be able to tell where one figure stops and the other begins.

But that is the key to their success. Ysil and Sunu, and other sculptures, may even serve to remind one of some deeply personal and consuming, life-altering memories. One may even begin to envy the statues because they are able to love so well.

Love is the key, the founder and basis of Carrasco's life and, as he would have it, of all life. He loves to paint, he loves to create things out of clay and beautiful stone and marble. He will continue to do these things until he ceases living because they are his life.

People come to see the works and they enjoy them and that makes him happy. These are his "latest children" he claims. They are still at home. The others have already flown the nest and are scattered around the world, although he has not kept records as to exactly where they all are.

Essentially, all of this can be found in Carrasco's words: "Art is love, love is life and you must learn to live your life ... not suffer it."

The artist is as fascinating as his works and his ability to encompass the entirety of life into a much smaller area for a short time. He is truly an inspiration, an inevitable force of life -- insisting to all that he is not done yet.