`Expresi Warna' has common aim: The expression of beauty

By Sean Cole

JAKARTA (JP): There are times when distance between a painting and its viewer is necessary for the full impact of the piece.

Sometimes, when we know nothing of an artist or his/her background, we can believe the delicate illusion of life. Knowing the artist personally, or even knowing something of his or her life, could serve to sway our perception of their works. Instead of witnessing the miracle of life and the mood created from color line and shading we might just see a refracted image of the artist, standing and deciding if he or she succeeded with this one.

However, with Ekspresi Warna (Expression of Color), the story behind the exhibition from Aug. 31 to yesterday, and all of its works is as fascinating and radiant as the works themselves. Here, knowing what went into the creation of the exhibit does not spoil anything; if anything it triples the exhibit's richness and force.

Ekspresi Warna is the cumulative efforts of ten women, all studying painting under the direction of veteran artist Siti Roelijati Soewarjono. It is an annual event. This is the tenth group of students that Roelijati has instructed and subsequently exhibited with, and the fifth time it has been held at the Hilton Executive Club.

Every year Roelijati and her students evaluate, discuss, belabor and then finally choose the best amongst their works, those to be exhibited. Again, though, it is not just the "performance" itself that brings satisfaction to its participants (or even to one of its central patrons, former minister of education and culture Fuad Hassan) but the process leading up to it.

Common aim

Here is a collection of different lives and varied stories all gathering together toward a common aim: the expression of beauty. Every artist has a different technique and many experiments with vastly alternate styles; but they are unified in their love of the medium and the joy of creating art.

The show, then, is less a necessary end than a choice offering from a continuing pursuit.

The night before I met the artists I was fortunate enough to be acquainted personally to each one of their paintings. As we toured from wall to wall, Gina Santoso Widjaya, who submitted ten of her works to the exhibit, revealed the actual world from which the abstraction was born.

"She's a psychologist actually," she would say, explaining that all of the women had other careers and pointing to Tieneke Arif's Senyum Manis as though Tieneke herself were standing there. "She's an engineer," she pointed to Ludwina Ismail's Bunga Putih Di Pot Biru "And she owns Gallery Six," she pointed to Inda C. Utoyo's Various Flowers.

There are actually three groups of students represented in Ekspresi Warna. Gina, Ludwina, Eileen Widjaya, Iis Parwati Adisuria, Mira Atmadja and Astralita Darmawan make up one group. Tieneke and Inda are from another and Nurandayani Dirautama is from yet another. There is no classroom involved with Roelijati's lessons. Rather the artists and teacher convene weekly at one of their houses. Formal, technical instruction is minimal for, as Tieneke explains, a large part of the sessions' success comes from the freedom that the artists are given to pursue their ideas.

Roelijati might begin by discussing a certain technique or a way of perceiving and then simply tell her students to try it. Beyond that they are completely liberated to let their visions and ideas develop as they will. The critiquing is done in a group with everyone participating. There is also a lot of coffee- drinking and talking. According to Gina, none of the participants would make time to paint if it weren't for Roelijati. "We wouldn't approach our canvases," she says, "Now I have a time set aside every week that is just for painting."

Pressing schedules

All of the artists cherish this time, a hiatus from their pressing schedules of being mother, spouse, professional and, in Tieneke's case, student and teacher as well.

Tieneke's Duniaku (My World) I and II depict just what they claim to. Duniaku I is of a woman sitting at a desk in her study pouring serenely over a text. Duniaku II seems to render even more completely Tieneke's world. "I call them my world," she says "because my world is university." As a professor of psychology at her alma mater, the University of Indonesia, as well as a current student of philosophy, Tieneke is constantly steeped on both sides of learning.

Duniaku II shows a woman in a study as well, with the same absorbed, peaceful expression. Here, though, she rests her eyes, or perhaps they are just focused downward, and she is framed by shelves housing a vast array of texts. Tieneke has even gone so far as to paint the authors' names on the bindings -- Pythagorous, Freud, Kant and others making up only some of her influences. Also amongst the texts is a book by Tieneke's philosophy professor, who is also Inda's mother.

Anti-portrait

Of what is rendered in the exhibit, there are other portraits, landscapes from various beaches, Inda Utoyo's abstracts (often exquisite, rare blends of colors that mesh into intriguing shapes and the only abstracts in the exhibit) and one or two pieces that defy categorization.

Inda's Terkesima (roughly translated into "awed") can only be called an "anti-portrait." Here Inda portrays a man and woman not posing for the painting, in the traditional sense, but turning away suddenly from the viewer as though they had been startled.

"They're in shock," said Gina as we came to that piece.

Further, Inda has traced part of the figures -- their heads, the man's back, their shoulders -- with fragile, bright yellow strokes, off-setting the overall dimness and bringing the illusion of something beyond light. When I asked what they were looking at I was met with a short laugh. "I don't know," said Gina.

The majority of the images, though, is comprised of various florals. Still-lifes of lush crocuses, yellow lilies, banana plants, red ginger and others run a common thread throughout the showrooms. Often they appear in vases, sometimes textured by the artists to seem like ancient relics. Sometimes they are more organic, or in the case of Gina's 2 My Valentine collected more originally. 2 My Valentine is an explosion of roses, rolling and threatening to escape from their wrapping. The entire piece is a crash of red. "I really gave it to him," said Gina.

Mira's Red Ginger I, Red Ginger II, Daun Pisangan and Hutan Kayu make up the only watercolors in the exhibit. Their delicacy and vulnerability offset the boldness of many of the other pieces expertly -- especially the boldest colors and strokes in the exhibit, Eileen Wijaya's crashing bouquets of bursting, near-to- bleeding, flowers. For Eileen, the ability to render the effect of flowers so well probably comes from her constant absorption in them.

Gina, Eileen, Iis, Astralita, Mira and Ludwina, the first group mentioned above, usually gather at Eileen's house for the sessions. Her garden is immense, the source of many florals and still-lifes found in the exhibit. On the larger scale it is also the source of Eileen's Backyard by Iis. Iis, who often depicts traditional Indonesian dancers with a seemingly traditional technique, is able to treat her florals in the same translucent, subdued, quiet fashion -- and apparently quite realistically.

"(Eileen's) house looks like this," said Gina as we came to that piece. She traced each part of the garden with her finger as she explained what it was. Then she traced in the air at the bottom right-hand corner of the piece, well beyond the frame. "...And this is her swimming pool over here..."

Taxi

Apparently, when Roelijati travels back and forth from these sessions, or anywhere in the city, it is only by taxi, and more specifically, Blue Bird. "She always calls the Blue Bird," said Gina, explaining that she is never without her sketch pad and pencils and wants to concentrate on what she's doing as opposed to where she's going. Out of this came Glimpses From the Taxi Window, a street scene combining different elements of Jakarta's streets: a man digging up the pavement underneath an overpass, the boy next to him eating Bakso, a hand holding a lit cigarette, etc. Roelijati actually wishes to retire from teaching in a few years to allow more time for her own work.

There is no lack of interest in her paintings, though. Her works have been bought by patrons from the Ford Foundation, the Asia Foundation and John Hopkins University, among others. For the future, she and members of all of the groups she has taught are planning an enormous retrospective exhibit to be held the Hotel Indonesia next April. One might hope that one member in particular might be coerced into showing his works with the others.