Ken Pattern's lithographs confront Jakarta realities

By Chandra Johan

JAKARTA (JP): Graphic art remains a mystery to many people here. They still know little about the various graphic art techniques, such as woodcut, etching, screenprint, linoprint, monoprint and lithography.

One reason may be the lack of graphic art exhibitions in this country. Art exhibitions are dominated by painting, mainly the oil on canvas standards.

Unlike paintings and other art mediums, graphic art offers many possibilities. It provides two sides, the first being the expression of two dimensional images through the printing process.

The other is multiplication, that the result of the works, in the printing process, can be made into many copies. This allows the same work by an artist to be owned by many people. In this example, graphic art occupies a particular social role as it is not an exclusive work.

The ongoing solo exhibition of Ken Pattern at the Erasmus Huis, which runs through Dec. 8, is worthy of attention. The Canadian uses lithography, a medium which requires the artist to make a master work on stones before multiplying it through the print process.

To apply color, there must be another master made of the colors and parts desired. A graphic artist has to be patient, keeping emotions in check about wanting to know the end result of the work.

Viewing Pattern's works, we realize that technically he is sophisticated enough to master the lithography technique, proven by the flawless printing results and his capability of transferring the subject properly.

This expertise cannot be separated from the theme, or the subject, and the style he adopts. Pattern records urban scenery, especially Jakarta, photographically.

Pattern, who has lived in Jakarta for the past eight years, He is not interested in distorting or presenting contrasts against the realities he witnesses. This unjaundiced attitude makes his works unique and special, and is of special note.

Unlike other foreign artists who are generally interested in the exoticism of Bali or Java, Pattern is more drawn to daily realities in big cities like Jakarta. In his works, Jakarta is the slums areas on the riverbanks, narrow alleys in the kampongs or gleaming penthouses among the urban sprawl.

The reality of works like Up and Down the Ciliwung, Kampong Melayu or Penthouse are the truths that Jakartans experience daily, without the artist's creation of an artificial sheen or personal judgment.

What impresses in his works are the simplicity and easy-going attitude. But Pattern is not just a recorder of reality. The contents and special message in his works lie in his choice of subject matter.

Through his careful perspective, supported by a strong technique, his works actually speak much about the reality of social discrepancies in Jakarta. In Penthouse and Gang dari Shangri-La, (An Alley from Shangri-La), Patterns "photographs" a paradoxical pocket of the city formed of luxurious houses and shacks.

In his other works, he conveys the bitter realities of social life in Indonesia. Minangkabau Girl has a corner of a village house surrounded by clothes' lines. From the window of the house, a child in school uniform looks out sadly.

Ibu shows the hard work of women in remote villages untouched by development programs.

Most of his lithographs, which cost between US$75 and $300, have been sold.

With only a black-and-white technique and a relatively small size for the medium, Pattern's works show a strong simplicity which does not pale next to his full color paintings. The use of the two colors adds to the Indonesian ambience.

The works may not satisfy the visitor who expects more than just realistic images, or the intellectual snob who believes a good work of art must be an artistic conundrum.

But in Pattern's works the subjective values are not in the changes of image from formation to deformation, but found in the reality itself. It is the daily realities -- the social gap, golf courses, luxurious buildings built by human engineering -- which reveal the underlying values of the society.

If we assume his works to be text or discourse, then the text contains meanings to other levels, and so on. Reality does not need the tinkering of artists' hands to be capable of telling much about the good, and the not so good.

This depends on experience, or our full and total comprehension of a problem. Thus, values and complete understanding are served by Pattern through his lithography.

Unlike his lithographs, Pattern's paintings are blander and less touching. The portrait of reality also differs. In his paintings, Pattern records the stylized reality of Indonesia -- a tidy, man-made park, or a beach scene, coconut trees and all, reminiscent of the syrupy Mooi Indie works of artists during the Dutch colonial era.

Ken Pattern's works depict two realities which differ from each other, using two techniques which also diverge in their creation process. In doing so, he reveals the perfectionist within.