Color-coated canvases express artist's emotional palette

Chisato Hara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A brilliant spectrum of color greets visitors to Soka Gallery in Kemang, South Jakarta, where actor, playwright and graphic artist Taufan S. Chandranegara is exhibiting a collection of more than 100 oil and acrylic paintings created over the last three years.

His second solo exhibit of abstract paintings is an existentialist experiment in expressing deeply personal emotions in broad, powerful brushstrokes of undiluted reds, yellows, blues, greens, black and white -- and their permutations.

Themed "Tera", as in terra firma, Taufan wishes to lure viewers into exploring the purity of emotions and their inherent connection to nature, which he defines as an individual's natural state of being, without the distractions of the outside world.

A veteran actor of 25 years with the renowned theater company, Teater Koma, a former graphic artist with Tempo magazine, and a man who now has his own drama group, Durr Teater, Taufan is a self-taught artist.

"I believe that we all have a spirit, talents and skills, that reside within, and everyone -- you, me -- can become whatever we choose. It is a matter of faith, of choosing to believe in ourselves," he said at the opening on Aug. 22. "And inspiration lies all around us, even in the objects we encounter in daily life -- a bajaj, a cloud, the daylight."

Taufan's brush with art began at an early age, sketching and drawing on his own as little more than a toddler. Later, his parents entered him in the now Kelompok Garajas youth center in South Jakarta, where he was exposed to fine and performing arts activities.

"I was a dramatist, a graphic designer and also dabbled in photography on my own. After all this, I decided to return to my origins -- painting," he said.

Some of his works also hearken back to an earlier stage in his life, such as Prison of Bamboo.

"We all have powerful memories that have left a distinct impression on us. This painting is a childhood memory of lying on the ground in a kampong, staring up at the sky through a forest of bamboo," Taufan explained.

The canvas, most of which is covered in black swirls, appears intimidating at first, but upon closer contemplation, it offers a glimmer of this extracted sky, pulsating forth in light blue and yellow through the tangle of symbolic bamboo.

Others are purely emotional expressions, such as Falter, on which the artist worked eight hours nonstop, created in a single, extended period of anguish.

"I'm proudest of this one, which took the longest time to create (in a single sitting)," he said. "When I made this painting, I was feeling stuck in my life, hesitant about a decision I had to make, so I poured it out on the canvas."

The finishing touches -- slashes with the palette knife that gouge violently into the thick paint -- illustrate the fervor in which Falter was created.

Still others are emotional representations of a specific subject matter, as in Woman in Red. As the title implies, the painting is an overlay of black on vermilion, but the artist has a personal interpretation of the hue.

"Red is often used to express passion or anger, but for me, it is a metaphor for celebration and happiness."

The subject of the painting is his wife, dancer Rita Dewi Saleh, whom he affectionately calls "my dancer".

"Woman in Red isn't about lust or desire in particular, but fulfillment and happiness," he said.

Taufan's works, spread throughout the two stories of Soka Gallery, may appear puzzling to some viewers, as the emotional content of each piece is highly personal and subjective. The catalog provides a descriptive analysis of the paintings that offers a way for viewers to enjoy the exhibit -- that is, to follow the artist's example and draw their own emotional interpretations and responses from the paintings.

Eddy Sugiri, a private art collector who officiated the exhibition opening, commented that "Taufan's work is intriguing because he is trying to express pure emotion through his paintings".

"At first glance, viewers might miss the dialog within his work, the articulation of his concept. I missed that at first," he said.

However, he added, Taufan's works -- with their different strokes, interplays of color and range of emotions -- invite viewers to find a language to understand them. At the same time, several pieces recalled to mind the techniques of other artists, which made Eddy question whether Taufan was able to fulfill his artistic goal -- "Are they purely emotional or a 'copy'?"

"Some of his abstract paintings are not esthetic in the commercial sense, that is, they require a lot of effort to understand, or simply to enjoy. ... But Taufan is fully immersed in his paintings ... he is an artist exercising his sensibilities through color and the grade of his strokes.

"He is finding himself through his art," said Eddy.

Indeed, the work in "Tera", when viewed collectively, seems like a dream journal written in the medium of paint.

"I'd like to see him move on to the next stage, being more selective, more expressive in his concepts and compositions," said Eddy.

While Taufan's work is still "young" in terms of artistic experience and composition, creative development can readily be seen in works painted only three months apart. The most recent pieces, for example, are a departure from his earlier canvases that are literally coated in layers of paint, and contain untouched areas where the raw canvas shows through -- perhaps a new means to express purity.

His experimentation is also evident in the abstract shapes that compose a singular piece, varying from circuitous brushstrokes to soft cubic forms, and from linear swathes of paint applied with the palette knife to amorphous movement that nonetheless conveys an emotion -- whether Taufan's or the viewer's -- through color and light.

"Tera", a solo exhibition by Taufan S. Chandranegara, runs from Aug. 22 through Sept. 5 at Soka Gallery, Jl. Kemang Selatan Raya No. 31, Kemang, South Jakarta. Tel (021) 7823019, Fax (021) 7823020.