Jeihan's women mystified by darkness
By Mehru Jaffer
JAKARTA (JP): He turned 63 on Wednesday but the world of Jeihan continues to spin around tirelessly in search of all that human beings find so baffling and mischievous about life.
Painter Jeihan remains reflective and wildly creative even to this day as he explores the purpose and meaning of life and the concept of happiness. His canvases invariably have colorful backgrounds but bored and repetitive contours of human bodies that linger somberly in the foreground.
Born and brought up in the lap of aristocrats of Central Java, Jeihan moved to Bandung as a student, where he has lived for over four decades. He finds the environment of West Java's capital city far more suited to his age-old habit of spending long hours just thinking.
But, following a severe head injury while still a child, thinking was something medically discouraged. He did not go to school until he was 14 years old. Despite the hurt, Jeihan recalls that he insisted on thinking. He could not imagine a life devoid of thought.
Having little else to do, Jeihan began to express himself by drawing constantly. That perhaps healed him to the extent that he was finally able to attend school from the age of 15. Later he enrolled at the fine arts school of the Bandung Institute of Technology.
What has fascinated Jeihan, even as a child, is the contrast between the spectacular beauty of nature and the sorrow that seems to burden all human beings in one way or another. He has spent much of his life wondering why it is so difficult for people to conquer their problems.
Jeihan's art is an attempt to create a certain harmony between what is known and what is unknown in life.
During his so far six decades in this world, Jeihan admits to have experienced terrible loneliness, extreme poverty and utter confusion. There were moments in his life when instead of hope, all that he saw was endless and impenetrable darkness.
It is almost two decades since he has enjoyed the commercial success that has overcome poverty, and marriage and children have provided much physical comfort to his being. But confusion over what life is all about remains, providing much inspiration to his art but also sadness to his being.
Looking back, he feels that it was faith in himself, really, that helped him to battle his problems. As he matured it was faith in spirituality, a phenomenon far bigger and more profound than his own being that helped to keep his sanity intact.
In moments of extreme darkness he found that religion helped to show him that little ray of hope.
Jeihan claims to have experienced extreme hopelessness and desperation in life. He feels that loss of hope is responsible for making people do terrible things.
"When there is no hope, a person is capable of doing anything," Jeihan told The Jakarta Post as he sat surrounded by dozens of his paintings, mainly of listless women with their eyes wide shut and still as dark as black holes.
That is because Jeihan is mystified by darkness as much as he is by women. He is attracted to both in almost a suicidal way as he is not able to understand either.
To him, women are the source of all life and to penetrate that which exists beyond a pretty face and the lush contours of the torso deep into the darkness of the midnight kind is what Jeihan's journey is all about, both in life and in art.
It was the dark spaces in place of eyes that first attracted art collector and impresario Peter Basuki of Tri Budaya Sari to Jeihan's women on canvas. He met Jeihan to buy one of his paintings but the association led to the involvement of S.T. Dupont as well and, together, a two-day exhibition and workshop with Jeihan was organized at the Jakarta Hilton Hotel to coincide with the restless painter's birthday on Sept. 26.
Jeihan's eye-opening exhibits remain on display at the Bapindo Plaza on Sept. 27 and Sept. 28 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.