Exhibition reveals Asian's vibrant esthetic energy

Exhibition reveals Asian's vibrant esthetic energy

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

This September turns out to be an early Christmas for art buffs on Bali with two major exhibitions showing simultaneously in the island's cultural village of Ubud.

The 18th Exhibition of the Asian Watercolor Confederation was opened early this month when the Pre Bali Biennale held the second of its planned four-week long exhibitions.

The Indonesian Watercolor Society (IWC) hosts the event, which involves 132 painters from nine watercolor associations in Indonesia, China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand.

With 31 participating artists, Indonesia is the largest presence in the exhibition, followed closely by Korea and China.

The exhibition also displays the works of 17 invited artists from several countries, including Australia, the Philippines and the United States.

These accomplished watercolorists include Donald Stuart and Leslie Friend of Australia, Paul Taksumi Nagano of the United States, Chang Fee Ming of Malaysia, Lee Man Fong of Singapore, Srihadi Soedarsono of Indonesia and Bali's own maestros, Lempad and Gunarsa.

Held in the spacious and beautiful Agung Rai Museum of Arts (ARMA) in the heart of Ubud, the exhibition will run until Sept. 30.

Classic themes

Sixty percent of the exhibited works are rural landscapes or beautiful still lifes of fruits and flowers.

This classical approach is particularly evident in the works of watercolorists from countries with long traditions of watercolor painting, such as China and Japan.

However, most of the painters succeeded in compensating for this "stagnation" through the dynamic exploration of new techniques and interpretations.

Landscape by Hong Kong watercolorist Mok Chi Sing, is a beautiful example of that dynamism. In the skilled, mature hands of Mok Chi Sing, a city by the sea is a wondrous arrangement of geometric forms in vivid colors.

In turn, the overlapped and intersected shapes of the city form an image of a couple locked in a warm embrace; a landscape of love.

Another Hong Kong watercolorist, Li Kam Wah, is one among a small number of participating artists who delves into the new themes of personal memory or collective pains.

His Father and Son visualizes this intimate, filial bond through a subtle gradation of red, yellow and white trapped inside the juxtaposed space created by the haunting, elongated and abstracted figures of men.

Artistic progress

The dynamic exploration of techniques, according to art critic Agus Dermawan T, underlines the significant esthetic progress watercolor painting has achieved in the past few years.

Previously, watercolor painting techniques were rather limited to the terms "aquarelle", "wet brush" and "dry brush", Dermawan said in the exhibition's catalog.

"Currently, those limitations have been pulled down," he stressed.

He cited the works of two participating artists, Min Wae Aung of Myanmar and Lan Sze Ling of Hong Kong, as fine examples of the exploration and exploitation of new techniques.

"His The Monk on the Morning Round shows how watercolor media can be processed to look like a presentation using the pastel dusel and oil paint impasto," he said.

Meanwhile, the smoothness and nearly photographic reality of Lam Sze Ling's Nocturnal Sightseeing will keep gallery-goers guessing as to whether it is truly a watercolor painting.

These newly found techniques and the ongoing exploration of watercolor painting, Dermawan reasoned, would stimulate the painters to take on new, challenging themes.

"Some are still remaining true to the traditional, eye- catching and ordinary paintings. But, there are quite a few artists who are moving on to narrative and symbolic manifestations, utilizing the unlimited potentials of watercolor," he added.

Vibrant Asia

Agus Dermawan T summed up the exhibition as a celebration of watercolor painting at a regional level, stressing that it should be used as a launching pad into the "international sky".

For Agung Rai, the founder of ARMA Museum, the exhibition is a clear testimony to the richness and vibrancy of the Asian esthetic landscape.

"Asia is a huge place endowed with a diverse cultural heritage and distinct creative energies. The works displayed in this exhibition, to some extent, have managed to capture the cultural dynamic of this region," he said.