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.