Examining Teja and Artayasa's existential painting

By Jean Couteau

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): A painter never paints alone; his creativity does not simply appear out of the blue. They are part of a milieu in which interfere the heritage from their society and influences from the farther world.

It is in the way they react to these factors and reflect them, as well as how they reflect upon them, that ultimately gives their standing in the art world.

Reciprocally, the art of painting as a collective endeavor is one of the fields that best mirrors the economic, sociological and ethical changes any society is subjected to.

It is in light of this relation with their Balinese environment -- if only because of its apparent lack of role -- that the works of Teja, 30, and Artayasa, 30, exhibited at Gallery Sembilan, Ubud, Bali, ought to be examined.

They are, within the range of their individual talent, among the best representatives of a new art paradigm to which Gallery Sembilan is the principal exponent on the island. An art paradigm resolutely international, mostly bereft of Balinese cultural references, strongly individualized and with a social or even political message.

Until the present, past Balinese painting has been subjected to two opposite tendencies, the result of contradictions inherent to Bali's position within the globalized economy.

On the one side it has become increasingly modern as society urbanized and opened itself to a flow of ideas and images from the outside world, abstraction and modern figurations were in this context accepted "as given", borrowed in their outer form and without their cultural underpinning. On the other side the "commodization" of Bali within the international market as "Tropical Paradise," "Morning of the World" and other lofty names has led its painting to preserve at all costs the signs of its "Balinese-ness" and therefore to accept modernity only reluctantly.

As a result, Balinese painting has since the beginning of the 20th century evolved between two thematic extremes: exotic alienation on the one hand, and strong affirmation of identity on the other, with a formal language evolving first toward realism and then toward modern figuration and abstraction.

Before the recent paradigmatic shift, the main trend -- with exponents like Nyoman Erawan, Wayan Sika and a young group of abstract expressionist artists -- was a painting abstract in form and composition but using a number of semi-figurative elements (checkered cloth, mountain symbols, opposition of colors) that enabled a symbolic, usually Hindu reading of the work. It looked abstract and modern, but was heavily Balinese, presenting the core symbols of the island culture.

It is against this trend that Teja, Artiyasa and other artists from the same generation are protesting. They are moving beyond identity problems. As Teja put it to the artist: "What does it mean to be Balinese? Nothing." This move of the painting discourse beyond Bali bespeaks a deep change at the level of the mind set of the Balinese; the young artists now talk of their feeling of violence, politics, all themes that were unheard of in the works of the previous generations -- with perhaps the exception of the very psychological Jirna. The discourse of Balinese painting is thus becoming much more open and varied, at the same time as it is losing the outer signs of its Balinese originality.

What is, in this new movement, the place of Teja and Artayasa. Their works have lost, as noted above, the signs of their "Balinese-ness". They show at the same time, traces of international, albeit indirect influences such as that of American graffiti art (Teja) or informal painting (Artiyasa).

This bears witness to the fact that at the beginning of the 21st century no one can afford to ignore the research in form or content made at the other end of the world.

The problem is not so much to acknowledge the reality of influences, but rather to gauge whether the artist has integrated these influences in a way that is both relevant to himself, as in revealing his personality, and relevant to his society of reference, as it reflects the changes in values that are taking place.

The appeal of Teja's painting is its negation of the very idea of appeal itself. His colors are washed, sullen, his composition devoid of focus and his figurative themes painstakingly selected to look casual, accidental and most importantly, meaningless. His works are made to look like dirty city walls where children and youths happen to draw immature drawings, numbers and comments.

Such treatment is far from the affirmation of ethnic identity the Balinese are so fond of in their modern art, with easy-to- read symbols, bright colors and an appealing composition. Teja talks instead of the lack of meaning in the death of traditional symbols and the sullenness of life. And this message transpires the very banality of the thematic signs he uses: numbers thrown on the canvas without apparent logic and drawings of cars, tanks and consumer items, such as bottles scattered without purpose on his wall-like painting, etc. Such atmosphere is new in Bali.

Other painters such as Erawan have already dealt with the theme of the death of their culture, but they have done so by using Hindu symbolism and always ended up reaffirming their identity. As for the genre, which has also appeared recently, it has never had the tone of existential "angst" so peculiar to Teja. If for this reason only, it should be interesting to further follow his evolution in the coming years.

Artayasa's works are, like Teja's, an expression of refusal, but with different themes and treatment. Almost all his paintings consist of distorted, ill-defined and unexpressive figures set in the middle of the canvas and occupying most of its surface. No obvious references are made to Balinese symbols and religion. Artayasa's works owe more to European informal art and American expressionism than to anything really Balinese.

The general atmosphere is pessimistic, in yellowish, brownish and grayish tones, now and then enlivened by small splotches of bright red. One has the impression that, while the artist is talking about man, he is depicting him as crushed and even negate to the point of sometimes hesitating on the verge of pure abstraction. Artayasa says that his pessimism is politically motivated, and he then goes on rambling about the "crisis of nationhood," anarchy, separatism and similar societal problems haunting the country.

His work, however, is not political in the proper sense of the word; there is no political message, but a sense of helplessness perhaps partially caused by politics, but probably more so by state of mind. Like Teha, Artayasa belongs to a generation which is questioning the old paradigms of Balinese art because Balinese society is undergoing deep changes.

However, when pondering for a while the "spirit of form" underlying Teja and Artayasa's works, one wonders what is the part played by the two artists' perception of the deep societal changes underway in Bali and that played by the ubiquitous presence of the outer world within their culture. The future should tell us and further expose their real artistic personality as they face the unending dialog of Bali with the outer world and the unfurling of yet deeper societal change. Art, after all, is but a mirror.

* The writer is an art observer and art curator living in Bali.