'Hot Wax' features shared cultures

'Hot Wax' features shared cultures

By Barbara Healy

JAKARTA (JP): "Hot Wax, an Exhibition of Australian Aboriginal
and Indonesian Batik", opened Friday at the Gedung Pameran Seni
Rupa on Jl. Merdeka Timur 14, Central Jakarta.

As the title suggests, this event represents a significant
culmination of artistic talent and cross-cultural communication
through batik imagery.

"The exhibit marks the first time an Aboriginal language group
has completed a batik project alongside other Australian and
Indonesian artists in preparation for a specific exhibition such
as this," said James Bennett, the curator of Southeast Asian and
Oceanic Art Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in
Australia.

All of the work in the exhibit was completed at a September
1994 workshop at Brahma Tirta Sari Batik Studio in Yogyakarta.
The combination of talent signifies a sharing of spiritual
philosophies and technical ideas between Indonesia and its close
neighbors in Australia.

The exhibition features work by the women of the Anmatyerr
language in Utopia in northeastern central Australia. For the
past decade, these people have been known for their acrylic
paintings which are derived from their spiritual tradition of
ceremonial body painting. During the outstation movement of the
late 1970s, when Aboriginals returned to their land after
European colonization had uprooted them, the universal craft
movement also occurred and people regained appreciation for
handmade works. These factors contributed to batik becoming the
preferred medium for the particular Utopia clan in this
exhibition.

Batik lends itself well to the isolated living environment of
these people. In the book Utopia, A Picture Story by Anne Marie
Brody, their method of making batik is described as "highly
sociable, domestic and informal, taking place near people's
homes, subject to interruption by children, hunting trips, and
weather extremes." In the midst of the remote outback dessert
this remains a most creative and practical outlet for expression.

The artists who joined with the Anmatyerr women at Brahma
Tirta Sari have worked with and supported the group, exchanging
and incorporating ideas toward enhancement of the clan's
technique as well as their own.

In 1988, Brahma Tirta Sari Batik Studio facilitated a cap
(batik stamp) workshop for Australian textile artists which has
activated a vibrant, ongoing program of exchange with the batik
makers from "Down Under". Agus Ismoyo and Nia Fliam, seasoned
batik artists at Brahma Tirta Sari, are catalysts in the
exploration of batik cap as a fine art textile form in Indonesia.

In "Hot Wax" these newly introduced techniques are used by the
Utopia artists for an enhanced expression of traditional designs
and their accompanying symbolic meanings within the Aboriginal
society. Nia has described working with these people in both
Indonesia and Australia as a primary example of the "transmission
of knowledge between one people and another through a shared
source of energy and traditional ties."

During the September workshop that led to this exhibition, the
Aboriginal women used traditional Javanese methods in their work
and adapted them to their own style and motifs. This is seen in
"Hot Wax" where Utopia batik depicts wayang kulit figures
alongside traditional ancestral goannas.

"In turn, Brahma Tirta Sari has integrated stylistic features
to their work which were inspired by the more relaxed and
spontaneous Aboriginal approach to design," said Bennett, a
consummate batik artist who has worked for years with Utopia and
other Aboriginal textile artists across Australia.

The inclusion of another white Australian batik artist, Jenny
Green, alongside the Aboriginal and Indonesian exhibitors,
reflects her contributions of the past 20 years in linguistics
and anthropology of the Utopia region as well as her creativity
in batik art. Her rapport is attributed in particular to the
significant role she has played in assisting Aboriginal people in
regaining their own traditional hunting and ceremonial lands
through Australian government indigenous land rights legislation.

Green has observed the incorporation of external styles and
influences of the Utopia artists which represents "a particular
genius and capacity to appropriate the exotic" without misplacing
local tradition.

In this exhibition the concern for carrying forward the
spiritual significance of art continues to be drawn from the
artists' own traditions, according to Green, whether it be
Javanese kejawen -- a Hindu-Javanese philosophy in which all
aspects of existence, seen and unseen, can be experienced
directly -- or Aboriginal "dreaming" which is the definition of
the creative era when all aspects of earth originated.

The particular cross section of creative energy generated in
the production of "Hot Wax" has proven the devotion of these
artists to the common goal of presenting batik with a dynamism
drawn from what Green has described as "traditional aesthetic
wisdom". The wisdom is translated through the medium of
brilliantly colored batik silks into a "contemporary visual
language".

The exhibition runs through Jan. 7 and is open from 10 a.m. to
9 p.m. daily.