Mother and Child series define Indonesia 'Baroque'

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): Galeri Nasional Indonesia, usually rather sterile in appearance, was transformed into an environment which one might mistake for a mountainside villa outside Jakarta.

Once you pass through the main gateway, a large gebyok Javanese house facade, you enter a garden filled with elements from other traditional Javanese dwellings: doorways, large armoires, tables, chairs, placed in the midst of lush green plants.

Numerous ceramic figures appear prominently amidst the garden, or even jungle, if you prefer. The highly stylized elegantly deformed sculptures are undoubtedly the works of F. Widayanto. The artist has held several exhibitions of his works, among the most prominent are Loro Blonjo (1990) and Ganesha-Ganeshi (1993).

The two shows are particularly worth mentioning as they feature the artist's flamboyant reinterpretation of icons that are already well-known in the Javanese tradition of sculpture. Loro Blonyo, the traditional Javanese wedding couple, usually depicted in their canonized, static, cross-legged sitting posture, are transformed by Widayanto into wild characters posed in various relaxed reclining positions. Certain features of the faces, such as the forehead, cheeks, lips, and chin, are deformed and exaggerated creating an exotic appearance.

Widayanto's Ganesha-Ganeshi is a significant departure from the famous Ganesha statues that appear in many Hindu temples on Java and Bali, the source of inspiration of his work. The statues show the elephant-headed Hindu deity as a prankish pot-bellied character in various posses. Sometimes he appears alone. Sometimes not -- Widayanto has created a mate, Ganeshi, whose character is as frolicsome as her name.

In his most recent exhibition, actually his seventh solo exhibition so far, Widayanto features the relationship between mother and child as his main theme. "In 1996, when I was in the midst of creating the Golekan ceramic sculpture, I was suddenly inspired to add a suckling baby and cradle in it in the woman's right arm, while she is holding a kitchen implement in the other hand," writes the artist. The sculpture caused him to be obsessed with the theme of mother and child.

In Ambung-ambungan, Kissing and Hugging, a boy kisses his mother while lying happily on her fat body. Developed from his previous Ganesha-Ganeshi series, the obese form appears over and over again, but always semi-reclining, full breasted and her large pot belly comprising most of her body. She is made with double or triple-chins, enhancing her obese appearance. Her eyes are half closed, suggesting more her laziness than tender loving care for her child as the artist actually intended.

If you listened to the British band The Smiths in the mid- 1980s, you might be familiar with a line a the song, which goes, Some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers. Well, the rest of Widayanto's mother figures are not as big as the ones mentioned above.

Ajar Mundak depicts a boy climbing affectionately on his mother's back, while the prankish boy in Pon Guyon tries to climb on his mother's head. In these two works, the mother figures are elegantly slim and endowed with upturned breasts and full protruding buttocks, making them rather sensual.

The faces of the sculptures are deformed and exaggerated with exotic facial features, similar to the ape-like figures of the Dutch colonial painter G.P. Adolfs' paintings. The figures hair- styles are highly overdone, almost to the extent of Bart Simpson's mother. It is clear that they have been derived from the artist's Golekan heads and busts, but developed into full human form in this series.

Yet the artist claims to be even freer. "I freed myself of the conventional human form, which resulted in the half human, half mermaid, half deer, or half snake creature. I even went so far as to add butterfly wings and beautiful claws to these creations. I thereby created more freedom for myself.

If is only natural for my creations to move and fly wherever their fancy takes them," he writes. Indeed, in Dayang Kiprah, mother and child appear equipped with wings of butterflies, here made of a kind of metal.

F. Widayanto's ceramic sculptures are highly controversial. Many like them, many hate them, and you either like them or you don't. Yet, whether you do or do not, you will have an idea why other people might feel differently about them. Sometimes, it depends on your mood. Widayanto's works are highly stylized and gaudy, yet in some ways they also appear elegant. Can gaudy works also be elegant? How? In any event, what is clear is that Widayanto's Mother and Child series define the "Baroque" in Indonesian sculpture.