JP/7/Amir

Women artists challenge limitations in Kartini spirit

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): The current Indonesian Women Artists Exhibition at the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, held until Sunday, and the Group Nine art exhibition opening next Tuesday, show the current developments in art by Indonesian women.

The exhibitions feature many women who are challenging their sociocultural limitations as artists, and also as women, in the spirit of the heroine of emancipation, R.A. Kartini.

Erica Hestu Wahyuni and Astari Rasjid courageously express a fresh, unrestricted spontaneity in their work. While Erica's energy is personified through the characters in her cartoon-like pieces, Astari's breakthrough is evident in the development of her abstract art.

Erica Wahyuni's style, on display in her works at the Taman Mini, is reminiscent of the idiom used by other Yogyakarta artists such as Heri Dono, A. Wulandari, M. Faisal and Titi Sari Daru Jati.

The placement of the two main figures, one on each side of the canvas, in Spirit of a Painter is also typical of Heri Dono's New Wayang Yogya composition, derived from the dualistic arrangement of a wayang kulit shadow puppet performance, in which two main figures positioned on the sides of the work are in confrontational opposition to each other.

Indeed, Erica's piece bursts with the explosive energy and spirit of the painter. It is animated with a playful and free vitality, much like Mat Groenig's Bart Simpson.

Unlike the mythological characters in Heri Dono's work, Erica's subject matter seems to be much more familiar and intimate, seeming to flow directly from her own personal life.

Symbolic

Nexus, Astari Rasjid's piece at the Taman Mini, epitomizes her departure from her previous figurative depictions. Rather than descriptive or narrative, here her expression becomes deeply symbolic.

The piece consists of two canvases. On the left is a blue phallic form, while on the right is a purple circle in front of which is placed a thin white tubular form.

A triangle, divided into two parts of the canvas, is painted between the two major elements. A piece of wood connects the triangle and the two canvases together.

The connection between the two pieces also manifests itself through a sense of balance or equilibrium that is portrayed in the painting.

The painting, consisting of two distinct and detached elements, has the potential of existing separately. However, the two parts of the piece maintain common elements which unite them.

Astari seems to be much freer in her exploration of artistic expression. She seems to be enthusiastic about using symbolic elements enabling her to express her inner self, "without having to use any lines to portray clear figures."

In preparation for the Group 9 exhibition, the artist is investigating new brush strokes and other techniques in addition to the use of symbols. It seems that we can expect more abstract work from her in the future.

Three other artists, Rahmayani, Marintan Sirait, and Dolorosa Sinaga use the physical elements of confinement to represent their attempt at challenging limits. While Rahmayani uses the chest as a metaphor for constraints, the door and the threshold appear in Sirait and Sinaga's works.

Three renderings of chests on exhibit at the Taman Mini express Rahmayani's solemn introspection. According to the artist, an individual is but a match within a box of matches.

The box, in turn, represents confinement. Hence, the box symbolizes life, full of constraints.

The artist ponders upon traditional rites of passage through the cycle of life. In an attempt to free herself from those constraints, she devised a ritual of her own, a ritual of painting.

Rahmayani maintains that elements of tradition need not be dismissed or rejected in modern expression. Rather, the constraints of tradition provide guidance through which she as a modern artist can excel. While the idiom of her expression appears modern, the conceptual content is rooted in tradition.

In Red Chest, Golden Chest and Yellow Chest, representing the spectrum of the variables that effect her as a woman in the arts, Rahmayani seems to be testing her own limitations.

Secretive liaison

Marintan Sirait's untitled piece, also at the Taman Mini, consists of a wooden door with a chain and padlock, on which are pasted three photographs portraying part of a mannequin's back in the midst of a field of grass and shrubbery.

The flat photographic representation is as important as the real three dimensional elements, such as the door which frames it. It may symbolize the union of the feminine body with nature.

The shrubbery suggests a secretive sexual liaison. The use of a severed body part placed in the shrubbery reminds one of David Lynch's sexually perverted imagery, in particular the discovery of an ear in the bushes in his Blue Velvet.

The frame of the piece is no longer a mere border. It has become an integral part of the whole art work. The use of the locked door as a frame introduces elements of both privacy and constraint. On one hand, the old door, which shares the character of the shrubbery, enhances the notion of secrecy. On the other hand the fact that it is locked represents Indonesian sexual taboos.

An untitled piece by Dolorosa Sinaga, to be exhibited at the Group Nine exhibition, shows a figure standing at the threshold of a door, pondering on which direction she should take. Here the door does not become an element of constraint but rather a passage through which one can advance.

"Now we are at the threshold of a new dawn, a dawn that will enlighten the entire Nusantara," claimed Kartini. At the transitory space of the threshold, the figure becomes cautious.

The prominent frame of the threshold, which the figure holds, suggests the artist's need for a strong frame of reference in order to progress. As in Rahmayani's work, this frame of reference may well be tradition.

The works of the five artists on show at the two exhibitions provide evidence of the new direction some women have chosen to follow to deal with the social and cultural limitations of Indonesian art. In their own ways, they have attempted to challenge those boundaries.

The Group 9 art exhibition will open next Tuesday at the Sudirman Tower.

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