Eye of the mind and window of the heart

Yusuf Susilo Hartono, Contributor, Jakarta

"I don't see that you're trying to return. I have seen no signs that you want to start changing the situation. Don't blame me for being void of any tolerance. I believe this is the right thing for me to do rather than allowing all to be disadvantaged. Before everything becomes too late. In this city, even in this life, you can't always depend on other people. My apology, once again, my apology."

Handwritten in black marker on a canvas with the picture of a large eye titled You Are, these words are Hanafi's outpouring of feelings. Not far from these written words, there are a number of small dots resembling a poignantly painful gaping wound. As an emphasis, the word "changing" is circled.

You Are is one of 25 installation paintings by Hanafi now on display in an exhibition at the National Gallery in Jakarta that will run through to May 20. This solo exhibition is a reconstruction of his 10-year journey as one of Indonesia's abstract painters. In this context, reconstruction means repainting the works he has developed within this decade such as the Black and White Period (1993), Spiritual Window (1994), Dancers Dream (1995), Masrum's Field (1966), Putting Tradition to a Test (1997), Room Ventilation I (1998), Study for Distance + Blue Print (1999), Stone Village at Costa Grave + Time (2000), Sayan's Solitude (2001) and Footnotes in the Head + You Are (2002).

Born in Purworejo, Central Java, on July 7, 1960, Hanafi studied at the Indonesian Fine Arts Institute of Yogyakarta between 1976 and 1979. Since 1992, he has had 14 solo exhibitions in Indonesia, Canada and Spain. He has also taken part in joint exhibitions dozens of times. In 1997 he won the Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation and the Philip Morris Indonesian Art Award.

Indeed, the eye is the window of the mind. The titles of his works, expressed in the abstract language of his art, show that in his creative activities, Hanafi has as his point of departure, the spiritual or inner cosmos, from which he peeps into the social arena.

Then, with his eyes he will, following tradition, also observe the world of discourse. In short, he peeps at the outside world from his own village. Therefore, his works present, in tone, a combination of the spiritual cosmos and the world of reason. In his figurative painting, a reconstruction of the cover of The Liars, he continues to shout, performing his duty as the era's watchdog.

In a span of 10 years, Hanafi underwent a change each year. This periodical change, seemingly, has been made a method to stimulate his emotion and energy in peeping at fresh items or peeking at whatever "is disturbing" his mind and feelings.

As he has painted in series, he can work on the canvas while at the same time diving deep into the bottom of contemplation. As a consequence of a repetition, the first dive is not necessarily shallower than the second, or the other way around.

Space and time, and the mental condition of the painter at a particular time, considerably affect the output of an artist. Only by directly recreating these works in accordance with their own peculiar time, can we enjoy the originality of the works with the emotional and historical content of a particular day on which each of them was created.

Here lies the strong and weak points of a reflection, or to be more precise, the reconstruction of the first decade of Hanafi's creative journey. Here he does not present his past works, as is usually the case in a retrospection, but he has done his reworking on his past themes with today's stroke of the brush and colors.

He insists, though, that this is creative retrospection. In his opinion, a retrospective exhibition featuring past works is but stagnation.

What has happened to Hanafi's abstract paintings in the past decade? For this exhibition, these paintings have been reworked only for a few months. While the series are many, the arrangement of reworked paintings brings about monotony. We, observers, can only capture uniformity in ideas expressed similarly. As a result, the titles of the paintings will not always be very important, as one painting and the others are not distinctly different.

Perhaps, another way is needed to allow art buffs to look at this particular exhibition wisely. It must be borne in mind that the exhibition alone is not a separate entity. Neither does it pretend to be a focus of attention.

Amid the exhibition alone, arranged with the domination of tall coarse grasses to decorate the floor and limestone columns on which paintings may be hung, there are various interesting events, such as Leo Kristi musical shows, a theatrical discussion, a cultural oration, presentation of documentary video slides and alternative film shows.

Amid the hustle and bustle of these events, the eye in a number of Hanafi's paintings continues to gaze at objects from its own place to come finally at his own mind's eye.