Judy Emery twists bamboo into art

Judy Emery twists bamboo into art

By Parvathi Nayar Narayan

JAKARTA (JP): An artist's creativity is often amazing.
Outside, an exhibition of Judy Emery's sculptural creations of
bamboo and metal strips, is an example of this marvel. Her raw
materials are mainly birdcages which she took apart and
reassembled. It is easy to understand her attraction to
birdcages, with all their inherent symbolism regarding
confinement, release and inside-outside spaces. Obviously Emery
is an artist who is material-led and inspired.

Her works are on display at Galeri Teguh, Jl. Gaharu I No.3,
Cilandak, South Jakarta, through Dec. 27.

Her very first attempts in the birdcage series were sometimes
dismantled. These, says Emery, were very tentative for she was
reluctant to free herself from the birdcage form. Among the work
on show, the earliest creations from the cages do reveal her
point of departure; for example, we see the cage form, even cage
doors, within the sculpture Fixed Approach.

The latest in the series done maybe half a year later verge on
the completely abstract. The cage is dismembered totally and put
together in a way that has little obvious reference to the
source. Later work also incorporates steel strips as in Unleash.

Curiously, it is the work that emerges midway through her
oeuvre that is the most attractive. Structure and non-structured
flow are exquisitely balanced in the works Equalizer and
Magnetized Gravitation.

The main lines of tension are created by arabesques of bamboo
lashed together. To extend the music metaphor, these strongest
rhythms are then punctuated by shorter, somewhat straighter
passages, also of wood. Finally the pieces of bamboo are tipped
with short sticks, bound to their edges with wire.

Thus an interesting transition from the bamboo to the
surrounding air space is created. As a result these two pieces of
sculpture, suspended in mid air, become closely linked with the
space within which they exist. Or from another perspective, the
negative spaces created by the interlocking sticks of bamboo are
as important as the bamboo sculpture itself. The resulting
creations are almost like textured calligraphy written in air.

It is intriguing to think of the cages being ripped apart,
liberated, but then bound together again. Teguh Ostenrik, the
owner of Galeri Teguh and himself a painter, explains the
importance of songbirds in the Javanese tradition. According to
him, the bird in the cage is physically confined so that its
energy may be released as song.

Profound influences on Emery's work are contemporary American
women sculptors like Louise Nevelson, a pioneer in the area of
assemblage sculpture created from debris or cast off objects like
wooden crates and furniture. Others include Mary Callery and her
linear sculptures as well as Eva Hesse with her complex, fluid
works that use innovative materials like cord.

Among Emery's sculptures, some function like table tops, some
like mobiles, some in between. Emery reacts sharply when asked
how she would like to see the sculptures installed in someone
else's home. She feels considerations like this belong to the
realm of interior design. As an artist she is only interested in
the creation of the work of art. Her concerns are the tensions,
the interplay of positive and negative space, judging when and
where the 'event' takes place in her sculpture.

Interestingly enough, it was a course in interior design in
the 1980s that was the first step towards Emery's future artistic
direction. She attended a two-year interior design course at
Anchorage Community College, and later a drawing course at the
University of Anchorage, Alaska.

Judy Emery, born in 1948 in New Orleans, entered a formal art
program at Kingston University in England only in 1991. However,
attending school as a mature student was a very enriching
experience. There was a lot to learn from the course, the art
galleries in and around the area, and from the artistic
environment in general. Personally she felt invigorated by her
youthful peers. Moreover, she had seen something of life, having
lived with her husband in different countries, and was able to
bring this to her studies.

In 1993 Emery moved with her husband to Jakarta. During the
first three years she did not get much time to create. Her
younger son left home to move to the States in January 1996. This
suddenly gave her a lot of free time and space within which to do
her sculptures. In fact, all the works on show were created this
year, which makes Emery a prolific artist.

Emery sees her life here in Indonesia as privileged. Her two
constant helpers are her maid and gardener. They create raw
materials for her to work from -- strips of bamboo from large
cock cages lashed together. They are also part of the actual
creative process, gripping, twisting and moving the pieces of
wood according to the sculptor's instructions.

Stepping back to view the work in progress, Emery is able to
judge when the line, tensions and angles are right. Then her
assistants bind the pieces in place. There are elements of
needlework in the tying with cloth and winding with wire. As for
the metal components, she has a metal worker who comes in and
does the welding.

Along with the three-dimensional work there is also a small
selection of Emery's drawings at the show. Both drawings and
sculptures are on sale, with the sculptures ranging in price
from US$1,500 to $7,500.

Essentially, Emery calls herself a self referential artist. By
this what she means is that she constantly creates images of her
inner self. "Everything I make is talking about me in some form,"
she says. Her exhibition may be called Outside, but she believes
in working from the inside out, intuitively rather than
intellectually.