Mangu casts off shackles of traditional Balinese

Mangu casts off shackles of traditional Balinese

By Putu Wirata

DENPASAR (JP): Agung Mangu Putra, 35, a painter who graduated
from the Yogyakarta-based Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI), has
surprisingly succeeded in exploring themes and objects which are
quite different from those usually worked upon by Bali-born
painters in general.

While the latter usually explore Balinese religious icons
because of their strong traditional bonds, Mangu has chosen fish,
mountains, sand, stone, the sky and so forth in ways obviously
showing that he has set himself free from the shackles of
Balinese traditional culture.

"I don't reject Balinese traditional symbols. No, I don't. The
fact is these traditional symbols simply don't attract me," he
said, after realizing that he had never explored the themes
originating in the culture of his place of birth.

In his exhibition at the Chedi Gallery, Payangan from Nov. 21
through Jan. 4, 1998, the themes center around fish, stones,
mountains and the sky.

Mangu Putra was born in Banjar Selat, Sangeh village, Badung
district, in 1963. After graduating from ISI, he returned here
and took up a job as a graphic designer.

In his free time, he will take his brush and start painting
but, of course, in this way he could not achieve his best in
painting. Yet in 1994 one of his paintings Undersea Imagination
(mixed media on canvas, 100 cm x 75 cm) was included as one of
the top ten in the Indonesian Art Awards and this painting was
exhibited in the ASEAN Art Award exhibition.

Nevertheless, Agung Mangu Putra was relatively unproductive.
He spent most of his time doing his job as a designer.

"I used to contemplate my work as a designer. I felt then that
if I continued to work as a designer I would never be able to
express on canvas many of my ideas," he said.

Then he decided to spend more time painting. He took part in a
number of joint exhibitions in a number of galleries throughout
the country. Unfortunately, few collectors were then interested
in his works. However, 1998 will be the year when Mangu's lucky
star shines brightly. Chedi Gallery, a gallery in a hotel, has
offered to exhibit his works.

"I have accepted the offer because the vision of the gallery
is clear. It is not intended only for commercial and profit-
seeking purposes," he said.

Mangu is exhibiting at Chedi Gallery over 20 of his paintings
that depict nature, both inanimate and living: fish, mountains
and the sea.

Why is he interested in fish? The inspiration stimulating him
to paint fish was that a fish has a plastic shape. The shape of a
fish can be easily represented by making only some free and
simple strokes, a dot for the eye and a line for the fin or the
tail.

Having painted his fish, Mangu began to explore "freedom
without having to turn into an abstract painter." Yet, Mangu
Putra has not drawn a fish in its realistic detail. A fish is
simply a source of inspiration because in fact Mangu is
fascinated by the entire environment where a fish exists: rocks,
sand, bait, boats and so forth.

"While drawing these fish, I felt as if I had been really
transported to the natural environment of the fish such as hard
rocks and whitish and light brown sand, Also I was reminded of
the lines of small fry I had just bought in the market, or even
of the fishermen far at sea," he said.

In a work entitled Footprint in Sand, Mangu draws the shape of
a small black fish. It simply lies on an expanse of dry sand.
There is a line forming the shape of a poisonous snake on the
left side. The footprints in the sand, given the color of dark
and light brown with real sand as the medium, have become a sort
of way for him to express hardness and scorching heat with which
fishermen are acquainted.

However, in Fossil II and Fossil III, Mangu draws fish bones
already turning themselves into old sediment. "When drawing this
fossil painting, I felt as if I had been an archaeologist
cleaning his discovery with a chisel or a broom," he said.

A mountain is another object he is interested in. "I greatly
admire mountains because this silent giant body keeps in it an
extraordinarily powerful force. I have nurtured an ambition to
scale the mountain but this will never come true because I have a
fear of heights," he said, honestly.

So, in his work called The Silence of Stone (oil painting on
canvas, 80 cm x 100 cm, 1998), Mangu draws his mountain from a
distant perspective. Visually, this work shows two perfect shapes
of mountains: one is green with a crater at the top and the other
is barren, also with a crater at the top. Behind the mountains
there are white clouds floating in the blue sky.

"I can get to the top of a mountain only in my imagination,"
he added.

Mangu also exhibits in this solo exhibition his painting
called Undersea Imagination, which earned in 1994 a citation in
the Indonesian Art Awards. Of course Mangu is not a snorkeler or
a deep diver.

Once in a while he saw films about underwater life where fish
freely swim as if moving in an expanse of water forming a giant
canvas. It is not easy to distinguish which are real fish and
which are only heaps of stones or perhaps some garbage. It is
this imaginative atmosphere that has inspired him to create this
painting.

Now, in this era of reform some people may ask whether Mangu
wishes to escape social responsibility as the themes he works on
seem to be separate from the tumultuous social reality of today.

Indeed, he is no social activist but he is not 100 percent
keeping his eyes closed to the present-day political reality,
which is fraught with demoralization.

In his painting entitled Contending for Food II (acrylic and
charcoal on paper, 60 cm x 35 cm, 1998), he shows avarice at
work. In this painting he satirizes human behavior as he sees it
today. Scores of fish move fast towards a heap of God knows what,
which they will contend for.

"Just like the fish, many of our political elite are only
vying for material gain. They no longer know the limits within
which they must keep themselves under control in order not to
unrightfully seize what belongs to other people," he noted.

It is a pity, an atmosphere of beastlier and wilder contention
in the society is not well manifested in this Contending for Food
II.