Gunawan's art goes against the grain

By Agus Dermawan T.

JAKARTA (JP): Just like the continuous search in the fashion world for the next big trend, painters also look for opportunities to draw the attention of the public. Over the years, contemporary Indonesian art has leaned heavily on social themes simply because of the predomination of gloom and chaos in Indonesia. Social psychology has it that every reeking of sorrow usually parts company with "sweetness". Hence, the seeming absence of "sweetness" in Indonesia's latest art works.

Strangely, this erroneous belief has taken a tremendous hold over some Indonesian arts observers, collectors and aficionados. A painting is often deemed obsolete if it does not reflect a social theme. It follows that a painting which shows "sweetness" lacks contemporaneity.

Contemporary paintings, to use this logic, must therefore thematically reflect chaos, absurdity and cynicism, and be presented in darkness, gloom and eeriness. In fact, it is the basic nature of contemporary art to stimulate diverse styles and artistic feelings.

Luckily, Gunawan Hanjaya, 47, a graduate of the Surakarta Cultural Association led by well-known artist Dullah, has refuted and straightened out this erroneous and shallow idea. In The Jewel of Nature, an exhibition that will kick of on June 17 and run to July 2, Gunawan will display 40 of his "sweet" paintings at Linda Gallery at Jl. Kemang Raya 46, South Jakarta.

To challenge the accepted belief of what is fashionable in painting, Gunawan has opted for realism as the major reference point of his paintings. His realism focuses on objects that are nonsocial in nature and pleasant, such as plants and flowers.

Gunawan has mastered all aspects of realism, but exploits this mastery to the rhythm of his brush and in tune with his heart's call as far as his hand will go. The results are the freely created objects on his canvases. Expressively presented, the objects of his paintings leave only their images on the canvas, with traces of the shapes of realism still visible.

Even if these objects are realistically represented on the canvas, the plants will either grow in the fertile ground of his imagination or be buried deep in every corner of his fantasy.

"For me, flowers and vegetation are a miracle, a jewel of nature. And I have painted them. However, realizing that they are God's great design, which I will never try to get the better of, I have decided only to respond to them and then plant these responses and let them grow in the imagination."

It is in this context that Gunawan has made use of the process of creative automation. True he starts with realism, but in the course of the painting process his objects move along with the flow of his feelings. Sometimes this process takes the objects to unexpected realms. This journey has given birth to shapes of flowers and leaves which appear only in botanical dictionaries.

Very often, however, the movement of his hand comes up with unnamed plants, species which have never existed anywhere on earth. All these painted objects will find themselves in a fresh constellation and composition; they grow in an unknown, new nature.

Gerbang Mawar (Gates of Rose) is a case in point. This painting does not tell the usual story of a rose growing in a garden. The rose instead finds itself blossoming in paradise, which may have existed only in our dreams. The rose in the painting creeps and perches everywhere. Its presence is a symbol. In another painting, Matahari di Balik Jendela (The Sun behind the Window), he has painted a sunflower looking up as when seen from inside a small room.

Symbols and signs (forms, strokes, scratches) that present a certain atmosphere are found in many of his works. A painting titled Bunga-Bunga Asean (ASEAN's Flowers) is a good example. By presenting a number of butterflies, it seems there is more to Gunawan than just his desire to pay respect to peacefulness and the glory of nature.

The same is true of his smaller-sized painting Anggrek Bulan (Lunar Orchid). The picture shows light spurting out from the sky. In another work, Tertawa Bersama Bunga-Bunga (Laughing Along With Flowers), he shows to us that nature is not just a place where you can contemplate and take a deep breath, but also a place where you can let your happiness run wild. His other painting, Penari Dalam Art Nouveau (Dancer in Art Nouveau), dwells on the world of Balinese traditional dance, which, thanks to the passage of time, has come into contact with European artistic styles such as Art Nouveau.

In many of his works, the flowers he has painted are so true to reality that they can be easily identified as, for example, purple stephanotis, orchids, datura candida, amarilis, narum oleander and so forth. Gunawan is really knowledgeable about the characteristics of the flowers he paints, taking the time to study them carefully.

Yet, he has also created his own flowers, which no longer need to represent real flowers and which may be divorced from the reality of meaning. Flowers may be created out of his imagination to present symbolic, psychological or philosophical meanings.

Gunawan's paintings have unconsciously obtained a decorative nature, so they can be quietly used as decoration.

Born in Solo in 1954, he is quite happy to see his works as decorative art, as he believes in the words of Oscar Wilde: "Of all observable arts, only the decorative art can create a mood and shape up the temperament within us towards betterment."

Once again, Gunawan is going against the contemporary assumption that a meaningful painting must contextually voice social problems and chaos in a way that will result in the aesthetic aspect being distorted by cooked-up meanings. Art with a sweet and decorative tendency has its own function, and this function is never outdated.

Further proof of this is that his "sweet" works are much in demand among serious collectors, which does not necessarily mean that his paintings are free from mistakes. His desire to fill the canvas with various elements leaves some parts of the canvas rather meaningless. Plants and flowers need ample room to grow in, don't they?

--The writer is an art observer.