Iraq war sets Tintin's canvas ablaze

Iraq war sets Tintin's canvas ablaze

Yusuf Susilo Hartono, Contributor, Jakarta

The ongoing U.S.-led aggression against Iraq has sent jitters
across the world. Through the footage of Al-Jazeera television
station, we in Indonesia can directly witness the drama enacted
by those who claim to be champions of human rights.

In Indonesia, people have responded in different ways. Mass
rallies have been staged in front of the U.S. and British
Embassies. Effigies of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair as
well as the U.S. and British flags have been burnt while posters
and banners voicing protests against the war have been displayed.

Street theater has expressed the protesters opposition to the
war and prayers for the Iraqi people have been held in many
places.

Taking part in this show of solidarity is a woman artist
Tintin S. AR, a graduate of Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)
school of fine arts.

Through her canvas, using acrylic as the medium, she expresses
her sorrow and anger over the war, with one painting titled Kota
Membara (City Ablaze). The painting, along with 40 other abstract
paintings based on nature and religiosity, are currently on
exhibit at Bank Bukopin in Kebon Sirih, Central Jakarta.

Still, Blazing City is different from the other paintings on
display, particularly in terms of color and emotion as shown in
the lines.

In this particular work, Tintin has made use of the interplay
of red and black. The red color looks just like the fire gulping
the rubble that remains of the buildings in Baghdad. Traces of
the pallet knife and the paint brush represent the screams of the
victims of war. Amid these colors and lines, Tintin accentuates
the painting with several golden dots, which, instead of
representing the stars in the sky, symbolize the cruise missiles
dancing in the night sky in pursuit of their targets.

Some of the visitors to the exhibit' opening night looked
contemplative and took a deep breath upon seeing this picture.
Perhaps they were saying a prayer in their hearts, hoping the
invasion into the Land of 1001 Nights would end soon.

Tintin is not a new face in Indonesia's fine arts world. She
may be less popular than Astari Rasyid, Arahmaiani, Bunga Jeruk
or Lucia Hartini, but, Tintin, who is from Bandung, has been
painting since she was a senior high school student some 33 years
ago.

Prior to favoring abstract expression, she tried many other
styles, among others, realism and naturalism. She had picked up
this abstract style due to the influence of her lecturers at ITB,
particularly the late Achmad Sadali and Srihadi Soedarsono.

Tintin's ongoing solo exhibition is her fifth. The first was
held in 1995 although she has taken part in over 50 joint
exhibitions here and abroad since 1973. Some of the most
important exhibitions she has taken part in were the 6th Asian
International Art Exhibition at Tagawa Art Museum, Japan (1991),
Coninek Gallery Amersfoot, Holland and Art Gallery in Belgium
(1992), and an exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1997).

Her works were also included in a painting auction in Glarum,
Singapore in 2002. Tintin also won a prize in the 2002 Indofood
Art Awards.

Aside from Blazing City, most of her other works in the
present exhibition reflect her incessant exploration of her
relationship with her environment. Look at Lembah Cisarua
(Cisarua Valley), Kampung Air (Water Village), Pura Bali
(Balinese Temple).
With clear strokes and contrasting colors (blue, yellow, orange
and brown), she presents a panorama in the form of a line of
houses, boats, temples, rice fields and clusters of flowers. She
has greatly deformed the objects, that she places under the ever-
present horizon on her canvas, in such a way that sometimes we
can still identify them and at other times get only an impression
of these objects. Some of her other works, for example the
paintings about the holy Ka'bah, reflect her relationship with
religion.

Only Tintin knows why human beings are absent in the works
that she has created in the past three years. In her two works on
the Ka'bah, there are millions of people moving around the Ka'bah
but we only get an impression of figures, which she has depicted
in a stretch of white color, drowned by the greatness of the
Ka'bah with a mosque and a minaret in the background. In the
context of a religious service, a human being is very small
before God. However, it is worth querying why human beings must
be absent from the houses, boats, the sea, rice fields and
villages in her paintings. Nevertheless, in her daily life,
Tintin loves people. She has a lot of friends and acquaintances.
Just like the rest of us, she loves peace, not war!

i-BOX:

The exhibition is held at the lobby of Bank Bukopin, Jl. Kebon
Sirih No. 12, Central Jakarta. Tel: 021-380 1291. It runs from
March 28 to April 8 2003.