'Indo' painter expresses cultural dilemma

'Indo' painter expresses cultural dilemma

By R. Fadjri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Edith Bons is a painter whose heritage is
anchored in two different worlds, but in whose creations the
Indonesian part without doubt has the upper hand. This trait
pervades her work, 30 examples of which are on show from April 4
to April 30 at the Cemeti Gallery, Yogyakarta.

Edith Bons employs a traditional Indonesian style or merges it
with Western styles. She is both a Western and an Eastern artist.
Such artists have a unique place in the Western art scene. They
may, sociologically, not differ from their Western brethren, but
psychologically they are often torn between Western and Eastern
values.

The life of the "Indo", the name given to the offspring of a
Dutch-Indonesian marriage, was not all that easy in colonial
times. They led a life full of conflicting values and prejudice,
constantly searching for their identity.

Prejudice was their lot in life during colonial times. They
found themselves sandwiched between two very different cultures,
confronted with racial prejudice, and a colonial heritage that
they found hard to shed.

Edith Bons was born in Merauke, Irian Jaya in 1952. She
graduated from the Academy of Various Arts in Minerva, Groningen,
the Netherlands, where she settled down in 1962 with her parents
at the age of ten. Indonesia was hardly talked about at home
since speedy adaptation to the Dutch lifestyle was expected of
Indos arriving from Indonesia.

The Indo propensity to ignore their Indonesian heritage has
its cause in the Netherlands East Indies colonial period. Said
Edith Bons: "Whenever my parents talked about Indonesia, they
really meant the Netherlands East Indies, a country that is now
long gone."

When the Dutch lost their power over Indonesia, the Indos who
opted for Dutch citizenship faced a dilemma, particularly those
born in the post-colonial era. On one hand, their economic needs
were being met in Holland, but on the other hand their feelings
were still linked to Indonesia. It is, therefore, not at all
surprising that Edith Bons finds herself emotionally tortured
every time Indonesia celebrates its independence on Aug. 17.

"Independence Day is a very challenging day for me. I have the
opportunity to feel as an all-Indonesian person, which, in
reality, I can never become," she lamented bitterly.

She wanted at first to go to the Far East, and not to
Indonesia. She had wanted to go to India or Nepal. Coming to
Indonesia was more of an accident. She settled down in Yogyakarta
and then in Jepara, Central Java, in 1985. She forged friendships
with Indonesian contemporaries. She even had an exhibition with
Nindityo Adipurnomo, another artist living in Yogyakarta. Since
then she has become more aware of her Indonesian heritage, both
personally and artistically.

It was in Indonesia that she found a form of expression in
traditional art like wayang, batik and carving.

Edith Bons works with all sorts of materials, like carton,
palm leaves and paint, traditional Indonesian touches in
combination with techniques of Western art. Apart from painting,
she also uses other forms like collage, gluing together
Indonesia's traditional art such as pictures of farmers or Dewi
Sri, the rice goddess of Java and Bali, shadow puppets, batik
cloths or the black-and-white checker cloths of Bali.

Take her 1994 work entitled The Land, for instance. The work
has pastoral pictures attached to a background of black-and-white
checks treated to give the whole picture a misty look. The
Balinese cloth could also be seen as an abstract form of paddy
fields. On the left, right and upper part of the work, thick
broken lines in white, yellow and red dominate. The picture is
painted on a piece of carton and framed in black and white,
exuding a nostalgic atmosphere of Indonesian village life.

The decorative style of Edith Bons' paintings is difficult to
ignore. It is very evident in her painting called Under The
Papaya Trees. Round shapes in yellow, blue and red on a lilac
background resemble batik ornaments made with the jumputan dyeing
technique. Then there is her work called Matahari I, in which a
snake encircles the canvas' edge, ornate in a yellow and green
triangle motif. In the center of the canvas, an abstract red sun
is simmering, surrounded by spiral shapes. It depicts nature
awash in sunshine, green vegetation and wild beasts.

Edith Bons uses Eastern symbols in combination with Dutch ones
which can be observed in one of her works featuring Dewi Sri, a
batik ornament and a shadow puppet facing a tulip and a windmill.
These symbols seem to express her dilemma, standing as she does
between two cultures. This can also be seen in Gembala (1994),
featuring a cross with the head of Semar, an Eastern and Western
symbol. Warna Biru Yang Hilang (The Blue Color That Disappeared)
stresses even more the dilemma of the Indo, symbolized in a
golden hill with two crosses on the left. On top of the hill, two
shadow puppets are in a challenging stance, while a broad blue
line stretches from one corner to the other under the hill. It is
as if Edith Bons wanted to say that Dutch power was torn away
with the blue line on Aug. 17 1945, leaving only the red and
white. To someone who can either become Indonesian or Dutch, it
might denote that a part of themselves is lost forever.

"Indos will always find their identity squeezed in between two
races. They will try to live between two cultures without
priorities for either one," said Helena Spanjaard, a keen
observer of Dutch art, in a brochure available at the exhibit.

A sense of longing, romanticism, a search for identity, tie up
Edith Bons and her contemporaries to the culture of their
Indonesian forebears. And to enthusiasts of Western art, Edith
Bons and other artists of Indo parentage have generously enriched
the form of Western art.