Eddie Hara travels between two worlds
Cynthia, Contributor, Yogyakarta
Artist Eddie Hara is a man with his own unique view of the world. Visitors to his ninth solo exhibition in Semarang, Eddie's hometown, will travel into his strange dimension between the worlds. It is a place inhabited by eerie metamorphosed creatures, neither human nor animal, which escape from Eddie's imagination.
"They emerge from various domains with elusive mongrel identities," says curator, Hendro Wiyanto.
The Sweet Beasts exhibition is a reference to the paradoxical values and characteristics around and within us. We cannot take things at face value anymore and the message of Eddie's work is things are not what they seem. The opposites of good and evil are often simultaneously present.
"A nice looking person might actually be a bandit, while there are a lot of ugly people with bad attitudes, who turn out to be noble. For me, it's very hard to draw a line between good and bad nowadays," Eddie says.
His own life is somewhat unusual too. As an Indonesian now permanently living in Basel, Switzerland, he is a man between two worlds. He can observe the difference in peoples' ways of approaching life from his position in the middle. He travels back and forth to Indonesia several times a year.
The free lifestyle of Europe suits him and he particularly enjoys seeing the varied and wild expression of personal identity and social attitudes, adopted by certain groups of young Europeans. They flaunt their opinions and allegiances through their clothing, hairstyles and body decorations.
He is fascinated by the surreal and weird new left wing group, Oi Punk, which is a sort of scary looking opposition to the fascist Skinheads. They are similar in appearance but socially responsible and listen to music with lyrics about making a better world.
Eddy and his Swiss wife, Catherine, are both in sympathy with the social democratic ideals of the left-wing group. However, that kind of wild looking image would be rare and frowned upon in traditional Java, where Eddy sees most people as ultra conservative in outward appearance not daring to stand out in this way. For Eddy the homogeneous dress code of Java is boring.
Just as the punks and skinheads are weird and wonderful, so are the eccentrics, clowns, monsters, robots, cyborgs, snakes, birds and beasts on wheels, which populate Eddie's paintings. Where do they come from, what are they bringing us and where do they go?
They are smiling and yet sometimes appear sneering, angry or menacing, as though they know something dark that we don't yet know. They seem to come from a twilight carnival world, bringing to mind the Ray Bradbury short story, Something Wicked This Way Comes, or perhaps from a cyber netherworld where such mutant beings are born. Eddie enjoys cartoons and comic books and these have influenced his vision.
Eddie, 45, was born in Semarang and began drawing at 8. His first color pencil subjects were cowboys, Indians and Mexican bandits due to influence from Western movies.
Unfortunately, his father, a military man, disapproved of his hobby, but little Eddie still had the support of his mother.
At 14, Eddie wished to be a sailor because his cousin always told him stories of traveling the world. At the time, it seemed the only possible way to travel. He also corresponded with a pen friend in the Netherlands who tantalized him with postcards of art by Van Gogh and the old Dutch masters.
He also had his first chance to use oil paints in art classes at his school and sold his first painting. He says it was "a very kitsch image" of a Balinese temple in silhouette with a full moon in the sky.
After completing high school, Eddie desperately wished to study at the Indonesian Arts Institute in Yogyakarta but his father opposed his wish due to the bad image of artists' lifestyle. Three years later he was admitted at the institute. He was still afraid of telling his father, who died three months later due to cancer after accepting the fact that his son wanted to be an artist.
In 1983, Eddie had a studio in Yogyakarta and soon attracted local children's interest. He gave them art materials and was fascinated to watch their creativity.
A year later, he went to Switzerland for the first time, stayed three months and was very inspired by his first sight of the famous European art works in museums. He was particularly attracted to the work of Paul Klee and Miro. Then in 1989 he went to Holland intending to write a study of Lucebert, one of the COBRA group of artists. However, Eddie became more interested in studying at a Dutch art academy and never did meet Lucebert.
Eighty percent of Eddie's work is sold in Indonesia where demand is strong because he is better known. In Europe he has relationships with contemporary art galleries including the Pruess and Ochs Gallery in Berlin, which is specializing in work by big name Asian artists. There is a growing interest in the exotic styles. He also receives commissions for his work and has designed book covers, and a poster for a French rock music festival.
Eddie Hara's Sweet Beasts exhibition is at Galeri Semarang from Aug. 3 to Aug. 16.