Jason Monet does Kemang with loads of ladies

Jason Monet does Kemang with loads of ladies

Briony Kidd, Contributor, Jakarta

Jason Monet says he has been a professional painter since the age
of 21. His current show "New Horizons" at the Santi Gallery in
Kemang reflects the confidence of these years of experience, as
does the sheer volume of creative output on display, though
perhaps at the expense of thematic clarity.

This exhibition gives us Monet the commercial artist. The
paintings are large, colorful, figurative and very 'sellable'.
This is not an insult, but much of the work does suffer from the
lack of what one might call controversy.

There are quaint fishing scenes, island landscapes and sweet-
faced women curled up like cats. A side room is full of boat
pictures -- candy-colored oils that startle, but mixed in with
more conservative efforts. Monet's images are well executed,
energetic and sometimes passionate. But this is not always
enough.

As a guest of honor at the elegant opening of "New Horizons"
on Oct. 16, Monet cut an eccentric figure. With his unruly white
hair and beard, wearing just a casual shirt and sarong, he looked
more at home on Kuta Beach than an upmarket Jakarta gallery. And
this is true: the UK-born former resident of Australia has lived
on Bali for many years and draws much of his inspiration from its
dramatic settings.

In temperament, Monet seems equally non-conformist. Observed
chatting enthusiastically with guests, he became notably less
forthcoming during the official stage of the event. Though
standing dutifully at the microphone, no amount of prompting
could persuade Monet to offer up more than a few sentences.

Oh yes, and a brief rendition of what he described as an
"Aborigine love song" on the (imaginary) didgeridoo. If the
audience was baffled they were too polite to show it.

Love, explained Monet, is the theme of his work. He paints
what he loves -- and no more than this needs to be said. Gallery
staff may have been tearing their hair out at Mr. Monet's
reluctance to laud his own genius but it is a position that
commands respect.

Actually, perhaps this little show of rebelliousness -- slight
as it may have been -- is just the sort of thing an art dealer
hopes for. The notion of the artist as a showman persists. While
many reject it -- seeing themselves as private individuals and
their persona is nobody's business but their own -- some artists
have reinterpreted that for their times. In the 1960s, Andy
Warhol presented himself as director of a "factory" and in the
1990s, Damien Hirst was a pop star for Cool Britannia.

Jason Monet's approach is old school. Artists do not wear
suits. An artist is there to be an artist. Artists are not just
like everyone else and it would be cheating the public if they
were. There is something rather noble about this. The image of a
beatnik wearing a beret and smoking French cigarettes is an old
joke by now, but could it be that maintaining some sense of
"difference" is important somehow?

Photographs show Monet as a large, earthy man, big-bellied and
tanned, at home in his tropical surroundings. He paints
beautiful women, many of them, and this too informs us about his
image (justly or not). The artist as potentate, master of all he
surveys. The maestro. An artist in the Picasso tradition.
Gauguin also comes to mind. Monet looks like a beachcomber and is
a European who has abandoned Western values for the simplicity of
island life, perhaps to leave behind "everything that is
artificial and conventional" (as Gauguin explained it, and it
must be a tall order.)

In keeping with his heroes, Monet's approach is very much a
masculine one.

A male painter paints women and landscapes -- of course.
Choice of subject matter is one of main things we look to for an
artist's intentions, so in a show of this size and chronological
depth it is tempting to construct some kind of narrative. If we
read simply, one might say that Monet's world consists of himself
(there are some self-portraits), scenery and women. Perhaps this
is a reasonable outlook for a heterosexual man, but it's not
stunningly original.

Monet is a romantic. Beauty is everything. His is a world
better than the real one: outside time and politics; vibrant and
exotic but essentially simple.

This veers into banality.

Fortunately, some grit is mixed in. While the themes and
settings explored in "New Horizons" often seem too general, the
specifics of character are this show's salvation. The ability to
read people, to communicate something through a human face, is
another old-fashioned talent. But a real one. The most satisfying
portraits in "New Horizons" are those where Monet truly sees his
subjects.

Monet's self-portraits do not flatter but neither are they
contemptuous. In Self-Portrait (2000), pastel on canvas, the
artist's large shaggy head fills the frame, his eyes sad,
mysterious -- a modern day Lear (an impression reinforced by the
presence of Monet's two beautiful daughters by his side at
the exhibition opening).

Monet's paintings of women are most successful when he affords
them the respect of judging them as harshly as he judges himself.
Often he positions his women in passive poses; curled in a
hammock, a couch, on a bed. These supine figures are
unthreatening, gentle. Sometimes this works, such as in Dog and
Sachiko (2001), a gently humorous depiction of a woman and her
pet, vivid with details like rough purple splodges on her dress.

But often it does not work. The paintings seem too contained
and decorative. The women seem placid, even bland.

But then a painting like Emi (2004) comes like a dash of cold
water. Against a red background, she stares out at belligerently,
a cigarette dangling in one hand. The look in her eye says
something unprintable. For this one moment, we feel that we know
her.

And Maija (2004), a pale women with a sad, elongated face.
There is no projection here. She's just a person.

Sometimes Monet seems under the influence of the idea of woman
as something part of nature, wild and unknowable. Voila Dancing
(1997) shows a girl, probably in Bali, dancing naked. But it is
just a body and does not come to life.

It is when such conceits are forgotten that something more
convincing is able to emerge. Such as Malay Girl (1996), a
painting of girl against a red background and overlaid with gold.
She holds a flower, stares at it angrily. The surface of the
paint is scored and scratched, so that the red seems to seep
through like blood.

"New Horizons" fills two large rooms and two side rooms and
features a mix of styles and mediums. As well as contemporary
work there are paintings going back to the early 1970s. Pictures
are grouped by subject, though inconsistently. Some subjects seem
overdone: too many curled up women, too many boats

Ultimately this exhibition would have benefited from being
smaller. It feels a little crowded and chaotic. Admittedly, this
is kind of fun: there is something satisfying about an exhibition
jam-packed with paintings. It feels European, a bit decadent.

But it also lessens the impact of the strongest works, their
effect dissipated by the presence of so many lesser variations.
All artists have failures. Such paintings will even be seen
(unless, like Francis Bacon, the artist decides to destroy them
in a fit of ruthlessness) and can be interesting. It is through
these experiments that an artist, filmmaker or novelist can be
understood better. This is not to say that these lesser works
should be exhibited.

While not billed as such, "New Horizons" comes across as a
retrospective (where else would you see more than thirty
paintings by one artist in the same room?). But retrospective or
not, it needs to have been more selective.

The upside to the show's sprawling abundance is that it allows
the viewer to feel a sense of discovery, of searching out hidden
gems. Like Mountain Agung (2004), a landscape that is bold,
energized and light-filled.