Darmawan's paintings reflect society's turbulent thoughts

By R. Fadjri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Today, more artists are taking an unconventional road for creative techniques as they go through mental tortures connected to social questions, while leaving behind the traditional ways.

Their works generally have strong themes.

One such artist is Ade Darmawan. He paints murals in oil on canvasses that depict graphic works, which are currently on show at the Cemeti Gallery, Yogyakarta, through Jan. 31, 1997. His works clearly reflect the turbulent thoughts of today's society.

The 23-year-old artist has transformed Cemeti Gallery's walls into a vision of murals. Unlike his other murals, the artist, a graduate of the Indonesian Art Institute of Yogyakarta, freely explores the ample space that is occupied by his works titled Deodorant Display of Power.

Four gallery walls, measuring 4 meters x 8 meters each, are taken up by the back view of a human torso.

The torso on the wall, shaded yellow, rises up from the floor. In its center, an imaginary form is connecting the head and the lower body part. Both hands of the figure are sporting different fingers, which extend further, occupying the other three walls. The left form of a severed hand gives the impression of being made of some pliable material, like rubber, from which a red bubble is trying to escape.

The right hand, painted red, seems to be wider, while its fingers have the shape of flames.

The works have used a technique that is often found in comic books. The pursuit of gallery space has created a stifling atmosphere because both hands seem to hold center-placed gallery viewers in a tight embrace. It feels as if the viewers are powerless in the embrace of those hands.

The human figure appears like a creature from outer space, capable of doing anything to somebody within its reach.

Darmawan has widened his hunting ground by extending an existing perspective in the line of the room's walls. The imaginary space of this creation has been filled with words copied from the cosmetic packaging of deodorants. For instance, Effective 24 Hours, Glides Smooth, With Just Few Strokes.

He seems to want to convey that the present situation is no more than the results of the social roles of individuals. Every social role brings moral values. However, people are no longer revealing what they are since they have to adopt certain roles in order to survive. Just like the manipulative powers of deodorant, which fills the user with self-confidence in performing his role in society, not as an individual.

The social role is, indeed, interwoven, as controlled power values will apply mass institutionalized forces to arrive at a collective value form.

Preachers, educators, intellectuals, politicians and various experts are using mass communications techniques in conveying their messages to acquire collective values. As a result, moral powers or truth values no longer belong to individuals but to the mass media. The individuals are no longer able to catch the reality because of their dependence on the mass media, which has somehow been manipulated. That is what Darmawan apparently wants to convey though his works.

From his work titled Love is a Storyboard, we see the shape of a surfboard, painted blue against the backdrop of a red-tiled wall, covered under folds of white cloth. The surfboard is covered with seven pictures of someone lecturing on TV. The pictures are displayed in such a way that they appear like a scene in a play. Efforts to contain collective values are thus applied in quite technical ways.

Powers of collective values retained by a certain force have become the key in the ideas and themes of Darmawan's works. This is also apparent in the graphic work which applies wood carving technique over plastic, titled No Sir. And on a piece of paper titled Your color, please, or Mass Mind Rape Strategies. There are three canvasses filled with commercial symbols.

There is a seal called New, a cross sign used for prohibition, and a fire tongue as a danger sign.

The visual symbols in these works are interpreted with texts at the upper part of the canvases.

It is quite likely that he might have liked to discuss the market which systematically imposes a value system successfully. The one who could make the "text" would also be the one to control the ideas and behavior standards of other people.

In an industrial discourse, we often find this idea in the form of advertisements which sporadically besiege consumer evaluations through the views of the mass media, while a moral discourse is always reflected in the various forms sponsored by the government and in the name of traditional value handouts.

Darmawan's style of pop art has made his works quite dependent on texts -- the captions on the canvases -- in order to form a combined meaning. Without the texts, the visual symbols do not convey much meaning.

Narration takes up an important place in a show of this kind. There is a playful trend with themes, implicating that each work contains a message.

Darmawan's works, or works of a similar type, no longer rank in variable art works. Here is an effort to communicate ideas through the means of art.

At times, elements will loose their importance, or, at least appear in playful themes of a very liberated form. At other times, verbal symbols of a stereotype nature dominate the scene, which is more emphasized by the texts.

Darmawan also applies the same mode in the comics he creates, which freely explores forms and the meaning of texts.

His works are, at least, blowing a fresh wind through industrial standards, which are increasingly growing stronger in the creative processes of an artist, when the artist is no longer producing for the sake of art, but is catering to market demands.