Mythological images featured in Bali painter's new exhibit

JIMBARAN, Bali: Painter Astari Rasjid will hold her year-end exhibition called Wings and Excursions at Ganesha Gallery in Four Seasons Resort at Jimbaran Bay starting from Dec.11, 2000 through Jan. 12, 2001.

Astari's works are blend of contemporary and traditional elements as she said, "Contemporary lifestyle can benefit from the mythology of goddesses who are appointed with the divine task of guiding and transforming humans. My purpose is to re-invent them as actualized images that touch upon today's issues."

Throughout her career, Astari has often depicted herself as a Javanese bride, in search of her identity between the polarities of traditional culture and the contemporary events engulfing a nation struggling to discover its own identity and path.

In this series of paintings she has expanded her vision to portray herself as a series of fragile winged goddesses also on the path of self discovery. Her yearning for flight is a symbol of the hope of liberation.

She also acknowledged the danger of failure so well expressed in the myth of Icarus, whose exuberant yet presumptuous flight resulted in death when his artificial wings melted in the rays of sun.

Noble intentions with an undercurrent of fear are an essential feature of Astari's work. Though superficially harmonious and elegant this is most easily seen in her penchant to idealize her features not to deceive but rather as a reflection of the cultural obsession of the Javanese to achieve perfection in the eyes of the community. In this she consciously treads a thin line between the taboo of narcissism and self-deprecatory humor.

Her intricate, meditative compositions exude both deep feelings and thoughts, but with a strong of sense of irony and even helplessness.

This evident in Solitaire where she depicts herself of a poised goddess in a red evening gown and bat-like wings collecting frequent flyer points against a sumptuous background of red and gold. While Solitaire and Shackled Cinderella, showing a goddess burdened with too much excess baggage as a symbol of materialism are modern goddesses.

Astari also draws inspiration from Indonesia's great mythological past. Three of the most poignant paintings are Dewi Sri, the pre-Hindu goddess of rice; Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and literature here depicted as a housewife and the fearsome Dewi Durga, the goddess of destruction and transformation.

The strength in Astari's compositions and her chosen subjects lies foremost in her ability to balance dualistic opposites from all planes of human and aesthetic experiences.

Through this ability to balance, she has touched upon the fundamental aim of Balinese, Javanese and Indonesian culture--to create and maintain balance and harmony on all planes of human existence in the image of the celestial realms. (Ganesha Gallery)