Group of Nine opened way for women artists

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): Many a bored housewife has taken up painting to kill time, but few have had such a passion for art as Ratmini Soedjatmoko.

More than 30 years ago she began taking painting lessons simply to avoid meaningless coffee mornings and mindless chatter in Washington, where her husband was posted at the Indonesian Embassy.

The 75-year-old Ratmini looks back on those lessons as a turning point in her life. She was amazed at her own creativity and delighted by the fact that she no longer had the time to complain about being bored.

Back in Jakarta she touched base with her old friend Wiranti Tedjasukmana and the two discovered that one of the passions they shared was painting.

What started out as two women soon grew to nine, meeting regularly to paint and to discuss art. In 1973, they called themselves Group Sembilan (Group of Nine). Those were the days when art galleries did not exist in Jakarta and the Jakarta School of Art at Taman Ismail Marzuki had just been established. The first exhibition of Group Sembilan, therefore, was held at the home of a bachelor who was very pleased to find himself suddenly surrounded by women.

He looked on indulgently as the art enthusiasts turned his home upside down and hammered nails in his walls to hang their work. By the time the exhibition was over, the women had sold 50 percent of their pieces. Since this first exhibition, the group has seen its roster expand to more than nine women and dwindle to as few as two, as artists come and go.

Over the years, such people as Dolorosa Sinaga, Iriantine Karnaya and Astari Rasjid have painted with the group. The one constant was that the group was always exclusively composed of women.

This may be changing though, with four men included in the group's latest exhibition being held in the lobby of The Regent Hotel in Jakarta. The exhibition will included works by 16 artists, including paintings, sculptures, ceramic pieces by F. Widayanto and textiles by Biranul Anas.

Among the works on display, the stunning black-and-white portraits by Arnold Sobers stand out. Talking to The Jakarta Post, Sobers said that, both as a guest in this country and as an artist, he felt nothing but pride at being asked to participate in the exhibition.

He said he considers it a privilege to have met the many local artists involved in the group, and looks forward to enriching himself further by accepting invitations to the studios and workshops of some of these artists.

While drawing a face, Sobers concentrates on the emotions of his subject. And by going into the detail of the bone structure, he also attempts to capture the cultural baggage of his subjects.

One of Sobers' works on display is Men Who Dream, which is mesmerizing for the uncertainty captured in the male model's eyes, along with the accompanying expression of hope.

Meanwhile, Ratmini said she was on the verge of experimenting with abstraction when she found herself in Tokyo. There her teachers inspired her to return to realism and she found herself reinterpreting the landscapes of Borobodur and the Prambanan temples of Central Java.

However, two recent paintings of Glodok and a North Jakarta market are colorful reminders of the Impressionistic and Cubist masters of Europe.

Wiranti, though, said she was happy to have graduated to the abstract realm of painting. "It makes me feel free. It is a very liberating exercise," said the housewife and Dutch language teacher, who started her painting career with a series of figures mostly inspired by dancers.

She says that as her life metamorphosed from wife to mother to grandmother, she felt more comfortable expressing her experiences in the abstract. She no longer feels the need to concentrate on details; instead her canvases are splashes of colors exuding happiness.

She also has become adept at depicting the bittersweet moments of her life. To express her feelings at parting from her family after a vacation, she drew a heart that was only half painted. And a view of the harbor from the high-rise apartment of one of her children in Hong Kong is a sea of sights and sounds, soaked in her memory and put on paper in a riot of colors.

Both Ratmini and Wiranti are happy that Jakarta has turned into a bustling marketplace exploding with a wide variety of artistic activities. It is, of course, more difficult to sell paintings today, but it is good that there is art available here for every possible taste and customer.

The exhibition at the Regent Hotel is open daily to the public from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. until Sept. 13.