German artist paints Indonesian images

JAKARTA (JP): The ongoing JakArt2001 festival seems to have stretched its arms far and wide to exhibit artworks of significant variety. Among them is German artist Andreas Torneberg, who is currently displaying about 20 of his artworks at Wisma Mitra Budaya until the end of June.

Primarily using acrylic, Andreas defies the popular usage of gradations in tone and tint -- instead, he concentrates on producing 3D images that seem to be articulate in the use of sharp contrasts and flat colors. It is as if he enjoyed dunking a broad brush in generous potfuls of paint and then painting with a precise and accurate hand. It's an accuracy stemming from the precise picture he has already painted in his head.

One wonders about the inspiration of the artist. He could not have visited Indonesia and painted from memory. An answer to this quest lies in a number of photographs displayed at the bottom of each painting. It seems as if each painting is the amalgamation of ten to fifteen of such photographs.

Sprayed in between his artworks are posters with poetic words on them. With titles such as The Tree and The Dance referring to the subject matter of his paintings, it seems as if Andreas wants the viewer to go one step beyond just the visual treat that his paintings have to offer.

In Merapi (220 x 70 cm) Andreas portrays Indonesian landscapes in his typical bold and flat colors. There are four panels placed one below the other. Each shows a dominating mountain in the background with rivers, black or blue, thatched roofs, maize fields extending toward the foreground.

A set of three panels entitled Green Fields (80x110 cm) depict the beautifully handcrafted, horizontal rice fields with an omnipresent black mountain towering in a pale sky. While one is a direct view, the other two panels are aerial views of the rice fields. The narrow strips of light contrast with darker shades, which vividly illustrates the bright, tropical sunlight that creates sharp shadows on terraced slopes.

Andreas has touched almost every facet of Indonesian culture in his own unique style. Be it the stupas of Borobodur Temple, the wayang kulit (shadow dance puppets) or the rangda (Balinese mask), Andreas paints with an innate, bold and masterful style. Each stroke seems to be an indispensable spot, tracing the contours of the subject matter. Each line seems to tell a story -- a story of Andreas' infatuation with Indonesian culture. As he says very aptly in the poem titled The Tree:

A country is a person/with many faces/A pool of thoughts/ Feelings/Characters/Hopes ...

Some of Andreas' paintings are in monotones of green and cream or black and white. Sometimes, as in Green Music (90x120 cm), they almost seem like a giant film negative hung up on the wall. Green and white figures playing in a traditional gamelan orchestra are spread in magnificent perspective across the canvas.

With unique angles of everyday Indonesian objects, such as his painting titled Back of Becak that depicts a close-up of the back of a becak (three-wheeled pedicab), Andreas draws attention to his aesthetic prowess. In Birdmarket Andreas paints the vertical lines of birdcages in almost geometric perfection using a motley of earth tones such as brown and beige.

In an ode to the title of the exhibition, The Dance, Andreas attempts to portray his vision of the dancing elements of nature -- volcanoes, fire, waves and wind through poetic verse:

Made from fire and water; Volcanoes come out; Earthfire cooled down...; And became a paradise of fruitful nature; Where lava erupted...; Deeply connected with the living depth; And people did not forget; That paradise grows; in a ground of insecurity; did not forget the power of the dance; still they believe; and they dance; in this believing; they dance.

Andreas' works are a celebration of those natural elements, and of the people he has met on his travels. (Pavan Kapoor)

The exhibition is on until the end of June at Wisma Mitra Budaya, Jl. Tanjung 34, Central Jakarta. For more information, contact organizer Cemara 6 Galeri at tel. 324505 or 3911823.