Eddie Hara translates social realities into art

Eddie Hara translates social realities into art

By R. Fadjri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Eddie Hara, 40, is an artist of the 1980s
generation. The tremendous economic development under the
previous government gave birth to businesspeople who wallowed in
such material prosperity they discovered the pleasure of owning
art.

The generation of artists maturing at the time, such as Eddie,
flourished. The naive style of painting developed by Eddie and
Heri Dono, and also the expressive semi-abstract style, became
highly popular. They, along with a number of painters of the
following generation, established a genre.

On the other side there is something very typical of the
generation, namely its ability to face things outside themselves.
Eddie has a very strong energy for play when responding to
collective events which are the subject matter of his creative
process. Social, political and environmental problems which would
make people frown instead become light, joyous and funny.

It is possible for Eddie, with his ability to play with ideas
and forms, to retain some distance from social realities which
have attracted his attention. Consequently Eddie is freer to
translate social realities in his own language.

At the beginning of his career Eddie was strongly inspired by
the naive style. He frequently painted animals and metamorphic
shapes, all of them symbolizing life's happiness. Time after time
there was a striking display of bright colors.

He says, however, that since 1988 he has painted the darker
side of social realities. "The figures in my paintings are not
only funny and merry, they can be satanic, cynical, cruel, angry
and ironical," he said.

But Eddie's reactions to social realities remain images of joy
and fun. Moreover, he has adopted the idioms of mass culture --
Superman, Batman and Mickey Mouse -- that are all very close to
the world of children.

The anger or cynicism toward certain events occurs through
expressions describing joy and fun. The same is still apparent in
his on-going solo exhibition titled Postcards from the Alps at
Cemeti Gallery, Yogyakarta, from July 4 through July 31.

An example is his work On becoming the President. On a canvass
of used cement bag paper measuring two square meters, Eddie,
using acrylic paint, depicts the figure of Batman in
predominantly yellow as the focus of attention.

Batman is wearing a suit with vertical lines, typical of
prison inmates. There are self-portraits of people in masks, a
skeleton of a man's head, and a figure with a pistol in his hand.

All those figures are depicted in a merry atmosphere -- wide-
open mouths and funny hats.

His ideas are perhaps a cynical view of the figure of the
president enjoying superpower status thanks to the support of the
military, while at the same time the power smells of crime.

The very complex idea of power is made simple in Eddie's hands
through the light language of mass culture. The style of the
language can even tone down the original idea of power and the
result is a different reaction.

Viewers usually smile or laugh in reaction to Eddie's
expression of power, in a similar way to those viewing a
caricature or a Donald Duck comic strip, in which cynicism, irony
and humor blend together.

Although Eddie has lived in Switzerland since 1996, he has
maintained his interest in the events of his country, including
the political upheavals.

This is apparent in Postcard from the Alps, a series of 80
envelopes measuring 16 cm x 23 cm. On these used envelopes,
complete with stamps, postmarks and addresses, Eddie put the
fluctuations of his thoughts while he was abroad.

In one of his works figures are raising both their hands. The
figures have various shapes of heads, leaving a funny impression.
The text reads: "PDI Mega above all," referring to the ousted
chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party.

In another of his envelope works, Eddie affixed a map of
Indonesia cut from Newsweek magazine. A text reading "A message
to my lovely country" is next to a figure wearing a hat with
horns and from his mouth come the words: Pro Democracy. Next is
another figure, also wearing a hat with horns, with a long nose
like a clown's, accompanied by the words For the people, by the
people, from the people.

Although his own wife is Swiss, the awareness of his
differences to Caucasians inevitably emerges when a number of his
friends with colored skin directly experience racial problems.

Eddie depicts the racial problems through two works called
Head Series. Each represents eight heads wearing hats. For Eddie
the head shapes describe racial differences -- immigrants against
white people -- which have also become a serious problem in
Western Europe.