Child painter wins Japanese art prize

Child painter wins Japanese art prize

By Tarko Sudiarno

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Famed as a child painter and stamp designer,
12-year-old Intan Sari Dewi Saputro is now also known as the
illustrator of an Illustrated Diary, or Enikki in Japanese.

This teenage Yogyakarta painter has again become the Grand
Prix Winner of this year's Enikki competition in Japan, the same
title accorded her in the 1993 competition.

Intan has made quite an achievement in painting. She has won
117 painting competitions: 16 at international level, 20 at
national level and 81 at Central Java and Yogyakarta levels.

In the 1999 Enikki competition, Intan's drawings, done on
paper and with colored round-tip markers, are not much different
from her other drawings. Although she is just entering her teens,
the first year junior high school student sticks to her drawing
style started when still a youngster.

For this year's Enikki competition, which received entries of
40,693 sets of drawings from Asia and the Pacific region, Intan's
set of drawings comprised five items depicting daily activities,
including a trip to Gembira Loka Zoo, activities in Malioboro
and the Borobudur Temple in Yogyakarta.

According to Hari Santosa of the Melati Suci painting studio,
where Intan studies how to paint, it is Intan's drawing
characteristics that may have attracted the panel of judges.

"Intan's style of painting or drawing has not changed much
since she was younger. Even if there is a change, it is not
substantial. She is faithful to her way of thinking," he said.

In her drawing of a trip to the Borobudur Temple, for example,
Intan maintains her style. The elephant, which is her main focus,
is done in red, while the foreground of the temple appears as a
group of small objects. From this drawing, it is clear Intan does
not care about the logic of perspective, the logic of anatomy or
even the logic of color. However, it is thanks to this nonrealist
approach to composition and shape that this drawing is beautiful.
And it is this that distinguishes her from other painters her age
because children generally tend to use color that conforms to the
objects in the drawing.

Intan, the second child of Anton Saputro, has been successful
all these years thanks to her original style.

"I just like to paint that way. I don't like to paint objects
as they really exist (in a realist style). So, I only get a grade
of six in drawing at school. I cannot draw anything using rules,
as my teacher teaches us at school. In short, I don't like the
drawing lessons at school," she said.

Hari Santosa, her painting teacher, also takes into account
her dislike for the drawing lessons at school. It is true that
the material of the drawing lessons at school not infrequently
frustrates children otherwise gifted with the ability to paint.
It is often the case in Indonesia that children can win painting
or drawing competitions, but after they grow up they never become
anything in the world of painting.

"Not many child painters continue to paint when they become
teenagers. If child or teenage painters do succeed as painters,
it is usually not the result of school education but rather
because of their training at painting studios," said Hari
Santoso.

Intan is a rare case. When she was one month shy of her third
birthday, she got a citation in a drawing competition in
Yogyakarta. Then, when she was three-and-a-half and still being
breast-fed, she won first prize in a national competition on
stamp designing. Her drawing, I Feed the Chicken, was used for
Indonesia's stamps which then president Soeharto launched at the
1992 National Children's Day.

Intan's mother, Yanny Widarti Imawan, reminisced, "In fact,
when doing the drawing, Intan was still being breast-fed. While
being breast-fed, she drew the picture of chickens with her right
hand. I wondered then whether she could win the competition
because she drew the pictures in a slanting position."

Then in 1993, Intan won a drawing competition again for a
design of Indonesian stamps. Her work I am Studying in Class won
first prize and was again the design of Indonesia's stamps.

Thanks to these two first prizes, the name Intan Sari Dewi is
now in the Museum of Indonesian Records as Indonesia's youngest
stamp designer.

Despite her great painting achievements, Intan, who aspires to
become a real painter and is now learning traditional Javanese
dance, feels to be just like her peers. She does not consider
herself special among friends and family members. In her daily
life, not many people know that she is a child painter with a lot
of prizes and international recognition to her credit. This is,
indeed, much different from the treatment accorded to child
celebrities and singers like Joshua or Maissy. Intan Sari Dewi,
just like any other child in Yogyakarta, remains modest.