Pattern gives form to Indonesia

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Seventeen years may be a long period for an individual to fully grasp the true nature of an object, but for Canadian artist Ken Pattern the duration is barely enough to achieve such an objective; his current art exhibition is evidence of a man trying to make sense of it all.

In fact, the lengthy period was what Pattern needed to go back to square one.

When he arrived in the country in late 1988, Pattern adopted surrealism to delineate his state of mind -- the cultural and climatic shocks he experienced landing in a tropical country after spending most of his time in a cold climate.

These days, Pattern has once again embraced surrealism to portray the conditions of a country he thought he knew well after his lengthy on-and-off stay.

The recurrent style bookended Pattern's sojourn into the realm of realism he adopted to give an account of the city's loss of innocence.

Pattern's current exhibition, the 12th he has held in collaboration with the Canadian Women's Association (CWA), displays drawings from all styles and periods.

Although a large number of items on display at the exhibition show the juxtaposition of rich and poor -- traditional neighborhoods and glass-and-steel modern construction -- some of his early works hint at the style Pattern took when he first arrived here.

Hanging next to his realist paintings are pictures of icebergs floating on a sun-soaked tropical beach adorned with tall coconut trees.

Pattern jokingly said that some visitors at past exhibitions believed that the portrayal was realistic. "A couple told me that they had seen them somewhere," he told The Jakarta Post.

Although surrealist in their theme, the drawings looked authentic -- just like photographs of actual views. Pattern said that one small drawing could take 100 hours to complete and the blue of the seawater was made up of dozens of layers of color.

The main attraction of the exhibition is Pattern's signature black-and-white, portrait-like drawings of Jakarta skyscrapers and their very antithesis, the city's shanty towns.

Pattern has also devoted a lot of his drawings to portraying the detail of shanties, especially those built on the banks of the Ciliwung River.

One of the drawings shows rows of makeshift houses built on the riverbank close to Manggarai railway station, South Jakarta. Towering above the shanties is the building that contains the erstwhile plush shopping mall, Pasaraya Manggarai.

"When the picture was drawn, Pasaraya Manggarai was still one of the city's luxurious shopping centers," Pattern's wife Helen Vanwel told the Post. Helen added that despite their filthy appearance, the shanties were clean and neat inside.

Also on display at the exhibition were a handful of Pattern's recent surrealist works, which dealt with his confusion at Indonesians -- especially Javanese people and their culture.

He uses the symbol of a labyrinth to represent the people's complex behavior.

However, there was a period when Pattern just played simply with his pallete. A number of drawings are straightforward portraits of beautiful landscapes.

Pattern's latest drawings show idyllic beaches in New Zealand he visited recently.

"In these pictures, there is nothing to say other than to accept the beauty of the earth and that we should appreciate the beauty all around us," he said.

Ken Pattern charity exhibition runs through May 28 at the Lobby Level I of Gran Melia Hotel, Jl. HR Rasuna Said, South Jakarta.