JP/17/CHILD
JP/17/CHILD
The sky is not always blue in children's eyes
The exploration of new themes and experimentation with colors,
which characterized the recent children's paintings exhibition
held here from Nov. 9 to 16, provides proof, if any is needed,
that children are not only creative but also acutely perceptive
of any alterations that affect their surroundings.
"In our time, the rice fields were always green, the sky was
always blue and there were always two mountains. These kids are
obviously much bolder and spontaneous than us in mixing and
applying colors, choosing compositions and presenting themes,"
proud father Agung Alit said.
Although most of the themes were upbeat in the emotional sense
-- there were no paintings that explore the hardships and
tragedies of life -- they were nevertheless no longer confined to
the rice fields-farmers-cows and sea-fishermen-ships that their
parents and parents' teachers were once so mesmerized by.
The paintings showed how these children, mostly from
kindergarten and first grade, tackled the things and phenomena
that they encountered in their daily lives, such as bustling
malls and popular Western or Japanese cartoon characters.
And how boldly they tackled these themes. In one painting, for
instance, the image of a swimming pool occupied almost the whole
area. The pool was painted deep blue, the tiles in pink and the
rest of the area in striking yellow.
Three persons, dressed in yellow, purple and red shirts
respectively, were swimming in the pool. And that was it. There
was no dog, no tree, not even a house.
"Their paintings show that these kids already have the ability
to convey their visual messages in a pointed, focused manner.
They identified what they wanted to paint, focused on it and
discarded other unnecessary elements from their canvas. Thus,
image-wise they are making very solid presentations," art
observer Popo Danes said.
In another painting, the image of the girl was impressively
simple and childlike, as were the five flowers the girl held in
her extended left hand.
However, the ways in which the colors -- mostly dark blue,
dark green and black -- were manipulated and applied were
hauntingly beautiful and reminded one of the great Russian-Jewish
painter Marc Chagall.
"It's a magnificent painting. It's no wonder that it has been
selected as the best painting in this exhibition," poet Tan Lioe
Ie said.
Organized by the country's only children's tabloid, Lintang,
the Rare Angon children's foundation and the Galang Kangin
artists community, this first-of-its kind exhibition showcased
more than 1,000 paintings.
This impressive number of paintings was assembled through
Lintang's weekly "Painting Together" children's events, which
have been held since 2000 in Denpasar's main public area, Puputan
Badung square.
The events drew a die-hard following of hundreds of children,
who managed to persuade their parents to take them to the square
every Sunday afternoon.
The team of judges comprised such personages as noted Balinese
modern painters Erawan and Budiana, who laboriously shifted
through all the submitted paintings to select those worthy of
being exhibited.
"From the very beginning we stressed the importance of
spontaneity, of the children being given the artistic freedom to
draw whatever they wanted to, and to use any colors that took
their fancy, as opposed to making them subject to their parents'
wishes or teachers' instructions," said Lintang's editor-in-
chief, Mas Ruscitadewi.
She believes that freedom is essential for the nurturing of
children's aesthetic skills and creativity. Judging from the
works displayed in the exhibition, she's probably dead right. --
I Wayan Juniartha