Nyoman's Mother Earth bleeds for Indonesia

Nyoman's Mother Earth bleeds for Indonesia

By Putu Wirata

DENPASAR (JP): "Mother Earth is smeared with blood and
violence, what generation will be born from her womb?" asks
prominent Indonesian installation artist Nyoman Erawan.

Erawan, 41, raises the question in an exhibition at the
Komaneka Fine Art Gallery, from April 3 to May 3, featuring 40
paintings depicting destruction, damage and death. He mixes the
dripping painting technique a la Jackson Pollock with the
technique he has developed himself.

The exhibition was opened with an art show, and the
presentation of an installation work named Ibu Bumi Nusantaraku
(My Mother Earth). The show was accompanied by the Budhiswara
music group, bringing together movement, music and fine arts.
There was symbolization in the triplex wooden black wall, three
masked ninja-like dancers, a projector conveying Erawan's
paintings.

The climax of the opening night was the thrust of a samurai
sword into a gallery door by a fourth dancer who moved like a
Japanese ninja. Erawan danced wildly using self-designed
equipment resembling the kalpataru, the mythological tree
symbolizing the preservation of the environment, an installation
he once created. Scores of small dolls hung from the tree's
twigs. The barbaric Erawan chewed on the dolls, decimating them
into small parts, and threw them to spectators. It was an
expression of nauseating greed, the greed of one who did not
hesitate to devour the future of newborn babies.

His installation work, measuring 5 meters by 3 meters,
emanates a reflection that can suffocate people or make them
aware. It represents the Balinese symbolization of the human body
as three body parts, what is known as tri-angga. The piece
depicts a body with its face up, the head and feet formed from
parts of a used boat which he bought from a fisherman in
Karangasem. The left and right arms are shaped from two
earthenware vessels filled with dolls, water and living fish, and
damaged dolls mixed with living worms.

In the belly is a vessel containing water and hoses hanging
from a solid body, which represents an image of a head and two
sharp weapons thrust into it: a samurai sword and a small dagger
smeared with blood.

For the pregnant woman lying on her back facing the sky, "My
Mother Earth" is a symbol of the Republic of Indonesia that is
now in agony. The work attacks human violence that is vulgar and
disquieting. "Clashes take place everywhere, blood is shed
everywhere and man needs spiritual reflection to make him aware
of his greed," said Erawan.

Perhaps he finds it no longer adequate to make allusions to
the violence with Balinese traditional icons that emanate
religious nuances. Previously, Erawan often presented violence in
a poetic-religious way: Balinese kris, spears much seen in Hindu
rituals or big spurs, all of which thrust the body of the boat
with cracks and holes. In Yang Ditusuk Menusuk (The One Who Is
Stabbed Stabs), a work exhibited at the Natayu Gallery a few
years ago, there is the parable of these Balinese religious icons
of spears, kris, red mattresses, etc. The work states that people
who have been downtrodden for too long will take revenge in the
future.

"People who have been stabbed and are bleeding will avenge
themselves in future if their patience is finished," he said.
Apparently, the riots in which government buildings were damaged,
the yields of development plundered and burned by the crowds are
among examples of how the people are unable to restrain
themselves to "stab after being stabbed for a long time".

Now, "My Mother Earth" weeps helplessly, harboring anxiety in
her advanced stage of pregnancy. "What kind of new generation
will be born from her womb, a morally flawed generation or a
virtuous generation to uphold human morality?" Erawan asked.

Superficially, it is not felt what stance Nyoman Erawan takes
against the factual violence committed by the ruling regime, by
community groups which borrow the hand of those in power because
they can.

"I am against violence. But, as a Hindu, I believe in the law
of karma and in this natural process," he said.

Thus, everyone that lives will be shattered, everyone that
lives will die, so we do not need to cry lengthily lamenting
death and destruction. However, everybody must try to prevent
depravity and maintain justice. It is this conviction that has
become Erawan's exploration in which he continues to follow the
word pralaya, the essence of which is destruction and death.

"As a human being I will continue to explore, although I do
not know where I shall arrive. But, I feel we know what our
objective is although we never know where we arrive," said
Erawan.