Paintings a clear view of Mexican landscapes

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): Ernesto Zeivy first learned of Bali when he came across the paintings of Miguel Covarrubias.

A writer and anthropologist, Covarrubias had little formal training in painting but his illustrations reveal his deep interest in the study of racial identity.

It was probably his curiosity of different cultures and people that brought Covarrubias to the Orient between 1930 and 1933, during which he spent some time painting in Bali. On his return to Mexico City he wrote Island of Bali in 1937, inspiring a great interest for this part of the world among people of the Americas.

What the 43-year-old Zeivy remembers from the paintings of Covarrubias is a lot of color, exotic faces and forms and figures that made him pine for this faraway land. Now armed with his own palette of watercolors and enough brushes to last a lifetime he is on his way to Bali to at last fulfill his fantasy.

"I know that things have changed. That I will find Bali different to the place that exists in my mind but I still have to see it for myself," an excited Zeivy told The Jakarta Post soon after his arrival here.

The Mexican painter is in town accompanying an exhibition of landscapes by five artists, including himself. The oldest painter in the group is 53 and the youngest 32. They all live in Mexico and meet regularly to paint together.

The five friends first started to meet three years ago when, once a week, they would paint the same nude model in an effort to master the human anatomy. For the past year they have been driving out of the hustle, bustle and pollution of Mexico every Monday to paint outdoors in the countryside.

The result is a series of landscapes of such pristine purity that the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico immediately put the works together in an exhibition at its prestigious institution at the end of last year. This exhibition was seen by Constantino Morales, the Mexican embassy's cultural attache in Jakarta.

"When I met the artists and saw their work, I said to myself, I have to bring these paintings here," Morales says of the exhibition, titled Landscapes of the Most Transparent Region, in nostalgic reminiscence for how clear the air of Mexico once was, when it was possible to look into the horizon for miles.

At that time the view was unobstructed by the thick clouds of pollution that hang over Mexico City today, making it virtually impossible to look beyond a metre.

Zeivy said that the group also decided to paint outdoors in imitation of the great masters of the classical period who went to nature and learnt in the open air how to capture color combinations, forms and especially the play of light on the atmosphere.

While all of them work alone in the studio, painting in the company of each other is more an exercise of togetherness in the midst of natural surroundings. It has been a tremendous learning experience for everyone in the group, and at the end of the day they end up making very similar paintings, even though the work they create in their studios remains completely different in both style and subject matter.

For example, Jose Castro Lenero is a painter of abstract themes, however, the landscapes he paints within the group are almost realistic. The same subject, as viewed by Paul Birbil, seems to lean more toward impressionism. Zeivy's personal style is expressionist and he more or less uses the same method when painting with the group.

The idea remains to unlock the soul of the artist from the confines of an ivory tower and to be face to face with other human beings and nature to practice all the different schools of painting before graduating to a style of one's own.

It is Daniel Lezama, 32, who inspires the other four artists the most, with his amazing strokes and energy.

"He is the youngest among us but all of us think that he is an outstanding artist," says Zeivy, who added that everyone in the group wanted to travel here with the exhibition but had prior commitments to fulfill.

Zeivy was the only one who could afford to spend one month in Indonesia and he is thrilled to be able to travel around the archipelago, to Yogyakarta, Bali, Lombok and Sumatra, in the hope of capturing some of the spirit of the land and people here.

The exhibition at La Casa de Mexico, Jl. Panglima Polim III, No 1-3, Kebayoran Baru is open until Feb. 28. For further information, tel. 5203980.