Dodo Abdullah captures street life on canvas
Dodo Abdullah captures street life on canvas
BANDUNG (JP): Like other big cities in this country, Bandung
also enjoys art exhibition euphoria. Not one day passes without
an art exhibition, especially those featuring paintings.
About 40 works of Dodo Abdullah are on display at Galeri
Bandung from June 20 through July 10. Through his paintings,
Abdullah portrays everyday scenes from people's lives: crowded
streets, shops along the streets, traffic jams, sidewalk vendors,
narrow streets, villages of poor fishermen, laborers and others.
In most of his paintings he uses watercolors with some
dominant colors of ocher, purple or purplish. This has been
rarely "enjoyed" by other artists. The average size of his work
is between 70 cm by 70 cm and the biggest is about 80 cm by 90
cm. The presence of people dominates his paintings. It seems that
he is very much influenced by his surroundings -- the crowded
neighborhood of Cicadas. Becak drivers, street vendors and
flutists are his favorite subjects. He paints human beings as if
he is obsessed with human existence.
"In his expressionistic style, he always states the existence
of movement," Eddy Hermanto, an art critic and painter, explains.
"He always enjoys painting in watercolor. He always records
anxiety, gloomy situations and pluralities."
If he chooses to paint an example of gloomy human existence,
he does not want to become "a hero who introduces the bitter life
of the underprivileged" to the public. He is innocent and honest.
He only records his surroundings, puts his love and attention
into painting what he has witnessed and the rest is up to the
public. He does not demand anything in return. If his teacher,
Jeihan, comes with a gigantic canvas, strong in self-confidence
and yet gentle in his touch, then Abdullah is the opposite. If
Jeihan could be compared to a banyan tree, then Abdullah would be
the green grass in our yard. When the grass is given attention,
we see its strength, its tenacious roots and its cute stranded
flowers pointing to the sky. Abdullah is a beautiful artist, and
his life is like Nashar, the silent, Sufi artist. His exhibition
of paintings, which are surprisingly very inexpensive -- between
Rp 800,000 and Rp 3 million -- is his desire to share his
understanding of life with others. And he does it with all his
innermost emotions.
His 1984 painting titled Banceuy is likely to be the
masterpiece of this exhibition. It is a painting of the old
Banceuy jail, where Sukarno was once detained during the Dutch
era. The painting shows a corner of Jl. Banceuy and Jl. ABC in
Bandung. Abdullah is perceptive in portraying the corner since he
could easily expose the high walls of Banceuy, with barbed wires
on top of the wall. He also put a guardroom in the corner of the
jail. His depiction of the streets gives an impression of
emptiness -- a hollow hole in his life. The walls are painted
mostly in green, with a soft gradation from dark green to light
green. His portrayal of the corner of the streets and the walls
of the jail are impressive.
Abdullah is a man on the street -- and he is aware of it. He
is just a man who paints common people and their surroundings,
which are his surroundings, too. (Wawan S. Husin)