Islands Exposed: Painters seeking cultural identity

Christina Schott, Contributor, Jakarta

Mention of the Mentawai people who live on a string of islands off West Sumatra or the Sasak of Lombok usually conjures up images of societies clinging onto their traditions amid a harsh environment, their lives prime study for fervent anthropologists.

Some travelers might remember the impressive natural surroundings of those areas, some collectors their native art. Hardly any would think of contemporary paintings in this context.

But this is exactly what ExpatriArt Gallery in Cipete, South Jakarta, presents in its newest exhibition "Islands Exposed". Two artists -- Saeful Bahri, a Sasak, and Ambrosius Sabaggalet of the Mentawai community living in Siberut -- show traditional life through the contemporary mirror of painting.

"With my pictures I want to express my hope that my people and culture can develop and find something new -- that they are not only seen as an exotic tribe with potential for tourism, but also by their very own skills," Saeful said.

The 25-year-old artist was born the son of a Sasak farmer. From elementary school, he went it alone in looking for a drawing teacher, because his family did not understand his desire to paint.

When he went to the senior high school of fine arts in Denpasar, Bali, and later to the Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta, he had to support himself through side jobs, with no funding from his parents.

"Until today they still think that I am wasting my time," Saeful said.

But the positive-minded painter worked for several years as a portraitist on touristy Jl. Malioboro in Yogyakarta and gave drawing lessons to rich women from Jakarta. The style of most of his works in the current exhibition reflects this development, consisting of clearly defined and realistic figures before a naturalistic, romanticized background.

He shows scenes from daily life as he remembers them from his village -- farmers at work, women doing traditional ceramics, impressions from a village festival. Most of the frames are as styled in the earthy colors of the Sasak pictures.

More expressive and contemporary are those works where Saeful goes a little more abstract, for example, in Rekayasa Identitas (Engineering of Identity) and Budaya (Cultural Identity).

The first shows replications of the head of a smiling boy, most of them, though, faceless, some with the traditional headband that Lombok men wear on special occasions. The second very bright, creamy-white picture presents a seductive woman with the legs of a horse, the wings of a butterfly and a modern haircut.

Both works speak of Saeful's tussle with his cultural background in finding his own identity.

His almost surreal work Regenarasi Budaya (Regeneration of Culture) seems to resume this fight: a person in a traditional costume holding a blue ball in his strong hands and wearing a modern watch. The face, though, is transparent and reveals an arid landscape.

"I wish my people would find a way out of their dry and harsh surroundings to a better, maybe more modern way of life, without losing their very own cultural identity," the painter said.

Ambrosius, who could not attend the opening of the exhibition last week, shares similar experiences with Saeful. Although he did not grow up in his native village in the rain forest of the Mentawai islands, Ambrosius' childhood in the small town of Muara Siberut was still dominated by the traditions of his people.

His family could not understand his wish to study contemporary fine arts and did not support him when he went to the senior high school of fine arts in Padang, West Sumatra. He later became a student at the Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta.

The paintings of the 26-year-old artist are harder to decipher than Saeful's ones, also holding the tag "exotic" because of their rare subject matter.

"Where do you find contemporary art from the Mentawai islands?" asks Craig Pearce, the Australian owner of ExpatriatArt Gallery. "You never see anything like this, what makes these works and style very special."

Most of Ambrosius' works in this exhibition show scenes from the traditional life of the Mentawai people: a woman getting her teeth filed, villagers dancing and playing music, a Sikerei (medicine man) in his costume. Some accessories, like a watch or filter cigarettes, show the penetration of so-called modern civilization into the tribal culture.

All of his paintings are dominated by the theme of the special tattoo cult of the Mentawai people. The oldest painting, Tattoo Mentawai, shows an abstract, dark body presenting the thin lines of its skin decoration in an almost symmetrical pattern.

Most expressive are those works where Ambrosius blocks the background in just one strong color, because his figures then seem to exist in their real, own world. The newer ones give a naturalistic background, like a concession to the commercial need to sell art -- something both artists have experienced during their rocky path to their standing today.

Fortunately, there are still places like ExpatriArt Gallery that give a chance to young artists that have not yet earned a great name, but nevertheless show major talent and potential.

"I went to galleries and exhibitions all over the world. One day I thought it would be better to move my private collection to another place, what in 2001 became this gallery," said Pearce, who works as a teacher at the Jakarta International School.

Despite its name, the gallery focuses on Indonesian contemporary art.

"I myself am an expat, my partner's name is Tri and we exhibit art -- it's just a word game," Pearce explained. "I don't have a fixed concept that has any relationship with art by or for expatriates, we want to give a free and flexible space to any interesting project coming up.

"Therefore we are not able to compete with the big galleries selling their works for imaginary prizes we just want the people coming here relaxing and having fun, while enjoying the art."

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Islands Exposed ExpatriArt Gallery, Jl. Abdul Majid 14A, Cipete, South Jakarta (Tel. 7255856 or 72799729) Until Jan. 6, 2004 ---------------------------------------