Iman's works reflect yearning for natural environment

Iman's works reflect yearning for natural environment

By R. Fadjri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Woodcutting, an old technique, is thriving
through the creative vision of artist Yamyuli Dwi Iman.

With simple expressions and the symbols of a traditional
world, Iman conveys the changes people in an agrarian society are
undergoing.

Iman, 36, a graduate of the Indonesian Institute of Arts'
graphic arts department, has captured these changes through a
conventional graphic arts medium.

"The themes of my graphic works are responses to contemporary
problems that a traditional community is facing," he said.

The graphic works he is exhibiting now, through to Sept. 30,
at Cemeti Gallery, Yogyakarta, strongly reflect his longing for a
natural environment, and at the same time, his restlessness
regarding the contemporary situation.

Iman's graphic works remain two dimensional, using a woodcut
technique unique to Yogyakarta.

This technique, popular among Yogyakarta's graphic artists, is
essentially a deviation from the standard norm of graphic arts.
The duplications produced always yield different results in each
edition.

In Iman's works, the element of tradition assumes greater
prominence. Faces are drawn in a decorative style while objects
are from traditional, everyday life.

They include masks, antique chairs, traditional dining sets,
kerosene lamps and traditional children's toys.

Iman works on serious themes such as corruption, injustice and
the irony of independence for commoners who remain poor, as well
as frivolous themes such as the disappearance of traditional
games of rural children.

For his theme on corruption, Menu Anti Korupsi (Anticorruption
Menu), Iman put together 33 postcard-sized pictures with five
different objects, printed in different editions.

There are different shapes: a kerosene lamp, a terra-cotta
teapot, a rice cone inside a ceting, a plate containing tubers
and petai (beans with a pungent odor, eaten raw and cooked).
Could clinging to old essential values provide the anticorruption
remedy?

It is strange that for such an important theme he does not use
clamorous and mind-shocking expression.

Deriding

In Kursi dan Topeng (Chair and Masks), he cynically derides
the bag of tricks which constantly comes with the behavior of
those in power.

The theme is reflected through a red and blue antique chair,
over which four different masks are hovering.

Another contemporary phenomenon is depicted in Gebyar Senjang
(Glittering Gaps), a television running a dance program, with the
inscription "Glittering in Millions".

Underneath the television is a telephone connection. A child
is watching, holding a slingshot aimed at the television.

Iman is expressing his dislike of the popular interactive
television-telephone quizzes. These quizzes offer cash prizes
which, to rural people, are very large sums of money.

Village people can only watch; they cannot participate in the
quizzes because they have no telephones.

"This is discriminatory, especially considering that the
community is fed with the assumption that it is quite easy to win
large sums of money. Low-class people can never have this
opportunity," Iman said in exasperation.

In Tukang Sulap Sawah (Farmland magician) Iman further
highlights the road toward what he sees as eventual consumerism
through the change of rural farmland into housing complexes.

"A society may change physically," said Iman of the inevitable
change, "but their traditional norms should remain," he added
wistfully.

It is interesting to see Iman's strategy to get his messages
across. A graphic artist whose works have been bought by many
foreign collectors, he has arranged five titles, each comprising
eight to nine editions of his small-sized graphic works.

His assumption is that a message will have stronger appeal for
the public if it is more frequently conveyed.

He has been inspired by the mass communications techniques
through advertisements or propaganda, through a row of the same
posters or highly frequented broadcasts. It seems Iman has found
at least one modern technique to work for a very good cause.