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.