Profound reflections on life

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

Ivan Sagita is a painter whose imagery runs parallel with reality but is expressed in a mode that surpasses sheer imagination.

At least, this is the impression one gets from his solo exhibition, now running at CP Artspace here.

Some have dubbed his kind of painting as "surrealism". But as noted curators and art critics like Jim Supangkat, Suwarno Wisetotromo and Burhan elaborate, Sagito's works are profound reflections about life as a transitory state of being, ponderings on the absurd to the point of nihilism.

Yet Sagito himself is infused with a life-giving energy resulting in a flux of unusual and mind-bogging works, which to appreciate require intense effort on the part of the viewer.

Once, however, one is drawn into the mysteries of his oeuvre, there is no escape from its compelling grip.

In the collection on display at this exhibition the only work depicting a male figure is a drawing executed in pencil and pastel on wood. Even more interesting is that this figure is complete, body-wise, whereas the rest of his canvases depict faceless figures or figureless heads of women, together with elements usually attributed to women.

The selendang, a sash used by women around the waist or over the shoulder but also as a means for carrying babies or whatever loaded on their back, as well as the female face, appear as major metaphors in his pursuit to address the depressing realities of life and fearful thoughts of death.

While the selendang in Sagita's works is a symbol for the heavy load that grassroots people bear -- the marginalized, the discriminated -- metaphorically, it also identifies women as the human body in an exalted form.

A painting titled Dua Badan (Two Bodies, 2005), for instance, shows two figures using a selendang covering head and face and the neck, while the third figure has disappeared, leaving only the selendang in place, denoting the physical shape of the figure to evaporate under the heavy load.

In Dia Letakkan Tubuh di Tubuhnya (She Places a Body on Her Body, 2005), the selendang is a burden that integrates, becomes one, with the female body.

Hair in Sagito's vision is a metaphor for life, similar to beliefs in ancient times in which the story of Samson (in the Bible) attributed power to his long hair, or myths and legends of ancient traditions that believe in hair as the bearer of the soul.

It is also has medicinal potency in Chinese wisdom, and features in the enticing new findings as revealed in the works of the renown Chinese artist Gu Wenda in his fascinating hair installations.

In Sagita's oeuvre, hair is the life force in the struggle for survival, and a metaphor for a growing awareness of death that can eventually transcend into peaceful resignation, which some call the sublime.

Such is revealed in the painting Hidup Bermuatan Mati (Life that Implies Death, 2004). The painting depicts long strands of hair as a metaphor for continuous growth, but the interwoven rows of heads and faces, either with wide-open eyes or eyeless, appear like women on the way to their execution.

Similarly, Mati di Luar Sakit di Dalam (Dead Outside, Sick Inside) depicts long strands of hair with upside-down women's heads floating and disconnected from loose, suspending strands of hair. The same theme is found in Air Alir (Water Flowing), an installation of 28 wooden poles that may reflect the flow of water, or the movements of the hair. Each pole has a protruding eyeball.

The overall ambience in the works of Ivan Sagita is gloomy with somber gray-blue and dark brown overtones, and figureless heads dragged by long strands of hair.

Moving to Another Dimension offers an eerie scene likening worlds in desperate chaos, with female faceless figures or figureless faces juxtaposed against strands of hair that appear like gallows suspended in the air.

The same can be said of Terpotong Wajah yang Sepotong (A sliced face is cut), which depicts identical heads with open eyes or white, sightless eyes of women linked by hair strands and arranged horizontally.

In Makasih Kollwitz (Thank you Kollwitz), Sagito brings homage to Kaethe Kollwitz, the renowned German artist whose graphic works so compassionately pleaded for the poverty-stricken, the suffering and the sick.

Inspired by Kollwitz's haunting images, Sagita paints an old, emaciated woman figure stretched out on her hair, the length of which exceeds the extent of her body, and her eyes are white without the black of her eyeballs. Floating in parallel with the clouds above her is the notion of death, although the face is tilted and the hands indicate movement.

As Ivan Sagita uses the female and her attributes as metaphors for his orientation towards a life that is marked by the haunting face of death, one may be inclined to believe that he identifies women with suffering and pain, the losers in society.

It would be interesting to know whether such a view emanates from the subconscious or is based on observations of his own environment.

Ivan Sagita solo exhibition
Through July 29
CP Artspace
Jl. Suryopranoto 67A
Jakarta 10160
tel. 3448126