Japanese statues impress Yogyakartans
By R. Fadjri
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Free forms of three-dimensional objects fill the modest gallery with various sculpting and engraving techniques. One which especially catches the eye is Gentle Seduction, a wooden statue two meters high. It reminds people of a three-legged creature in science fiction films. There are bends like joints in the wooden legs which seem to present an unsteady standing position.
The three wooden legs support a ceramic cluster of forms suggesting something that is growing.
This is the work of Japanese sculptor Shigeyo Kobayashi, 41, whose exhibition at the Cemeti Gallery here through June 3 is his second.
The graduate majoring in metal arts at the Bunka University in Sapporo, Japan, was a student at the Indonesian Arts College in Denpasar, Bali from 1994 to 1995 -- which may explain locals' familiarity with some of his works.
Kobayashi combines both organic and nonorganic materials in a strongly decorative style.
He uses forest wood, clamshells, coral, seeds, brass and aluminum. He processes all the material into imaginative forms to give a message which the layman might not always easily be able to share.
One serial work, Listening for a crack, is composed from forms resembling split, gigantic peanut shells in colorful hues. Growing buds are seen in the open shells.
This work reflects Kobayashi's frequent theme of the relationship between nature and man. He is apparently much inspired by the process of the growth of plants which in their turn produce very esthetic forms.
He says one source of his inspiration is his birthplace in Sapporo.
"I always remember my grandmother's story of how plants absorb the energy of the earth and the sun when in growth. If the energy is not sufficient, plants will take it from man. That is why many people become crazy when plants reappear toward the coming of spring," he said.
For Kobayashi the mythology has become a fact. In Sapporo he used to feel weak and shaky, but in Bali where he settled for some time, he said he feels strong.
He said he learnt to make use of natural material but always tries to avoid using too much of it, and combines his creations with unnatural material.
The resulting exploration is striking and even provocative works.
Bright contrasting colors, decorative beads made of seeds or metal and exotic spiral forms constitute the dominant esthetic language in his works.
The tendency toward such a decorative style is influenced to a certain extent by the traditional Balinese style.
Kobayashi seems to have freed artistic skills from the functional element usually attached to traditional art; his sculpting and engraving techniques are only efforts to attain his ideas of imaginative forms.