Examining Teja and Artayasa's existential painting

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.