Reading part of Bunga Jeruk's journey

Reading part of Bunga Jeruk's journey

Singgir Kartana, Contributor, Yogyakarta

In the fine art world, Bunga Jeruk is a new icon. In the past two
years, this young artist has swiftly gained popularity. Visitors
have always flocked to her exhibitions. Her name is now as famous
as Nasirun, Entang Wiharsa, Erica Hestu, Agus Suwage and so
forth.

From Nov. 5 through Nov. 23, Bunga is displaying her works in
Dat Was Now Dis Is Then exhibition at Cemeti Art House,
Yogyakarta.

In this exhibition, Bunga features her experiences while
traveling at home and abroad. Indeed, she has traveled a lot
including to Singapore, Australia, the UK, Russia, Japan,
Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, France and the
U.S. Her works, both paintings and sculptures, are collected by
art buffs in these countries.

In her four years of traveling round the world, Bunga has met
a lot of things. Of course, there are unique objects such as
maps, files and banners or spiritual experiences that have fired
her imagination and thoughts.

Her experiences of these journeys have aroused Bunga's
esthetic restlessness. She was impressed by everything called
supplies, souvenirs and preparations, which are more personal in
nature and have consumed her energy. She has, therefore, often
wondered what does traveling actually mean. What is inside the
suitcase when you travel? What has made us travel?

This mental struggle has later been documented and reread
through her creative images. With her ability to evoke images and
her freedom in "reading" the matters she has come across in her
journeys, some of these materials have been expressed on canvas
and the paintings are featured in her exhibition this time.

In her hands, facts seemed to be arranged in a story or a
never-ending experience. If you observe her works, you may be
absorbed in your experience of an imaginary journey.

Of course, not everything that she has met has been featured
in this exhibition. In treating the facts she has met in her
journeys, Bunga resorts to two perspectives. On the one hand, she
collects again artifacts of sorts of her journeys, for example
used files or souvenirs.

Take, for instance, a book in which signatures are collected,
a recording of a white cloud seen from behind of an aircraft
window, a pile of paintings in a small package, a red banner, New
York-style, bearing the inscription of Hell's Kitchen Bar &
Grill. They are also presented as they are in the exhibition
hall.

Some have been packaged in a glass box, for example small
paintings measuring about 5 centimeters (cm) by 6 cm, a set of
cutlery of various sizes, a small pillow usually available on
board an airplane and small books where signatures are collected.
These objects remind us of the "complicated procedure" or
preparation when you make a journey, whether going home or
departing.

On the other side, Bunga, who said she could not create
anything without listening to music, has also reread these
artifacts. She has interpreted and breathed life to these objects
with all her sweat, imaginative power and thoughts. Her
experience of looking of the map of major cities like Amsterdam
and Washington, for example, has been reexpressed on her canvas
in her own way.

The result is not a map that we generally see, but it looks
more like the mosaic of colorful boxes and circles with a
dramatic complication that generates an effect of a profound
spiritual experience.

Some of her paintings show her exploration of silhouettes
expressed in bright colors. Most of these paintings dwell on
beauty. A painting of a small girl playing with her balloon, for
example, has been illustrated in a cool green, with an accent
resembling a child's painting. Then, there is the painting
depicting a girl admiring an aircraft. Here the two objects (the
aircraft and the small girl) are positioned a very short distance
away from each other. The accent on beauty dominates the central
theme of these silhouette works.

The theme of absurdity can also be traced in Bunga's works
this time. One of her works features a giant capsule painted in
blue and white. It bears the inscription, "Automatically Sleepy",
and is placed in a glass box. Its prominent size is an indication
that this capsule has become the symbol of absurd modernity. This
capsule reminds us that to get sleepy and doze off, one needs to
take a capsule.

What is interesting is how Bunga has reproduced in her
paintings the maps of major cities like Washington, Brooklyn and
Amsterdam. Of course, these are not like conventional maps, with
a scale and details of road names and so forth. Using bright
colors, Bunga has repainted the city map with a stress on the
expressive esthetics. So, the map of Amsterdam, for example,
looks more like an esthetic deep yellow-checkered piece than a
map with accurately positioned roads and buildings.

"Every time I pack my things and am ready to leave, I always
feel I'm the only one who travels that day ... They become very
possessive with her luggage, and are fully alert ....," writes
Bunga, whose full name is Bunga Jeruk Permata Pekerti, in the
introduction to her exhibition.

Bunga's works seem to confirm a profound question about the
meaning of a journey. Why do people travel? What is inside the
luggage being lugged when people are traveling somewhere? Tourist
photos, perhaps? Souvenirs, documents and files of the journey?
What is all this for?

These questions arise as a result of our "reading" of the
experience of a journey she has often made.

"Every time I pack my things and am ready to leave, I feel I'm
the only one traveling that day. People become most possessive
with their belongings," she said. Perhaps she is right.

In this modern era, to borrow from psychoanalyst Eric Fromm,
many people tend to adopt the orientation, to live in order to
possess, rather than to become. Traveling, or a journey has
become a moment about "monitoring" your own belongings. Every
time, then, needs a party.

Bunga Jeruk was born in Surakarta, Central Java, on May 8,
1972. She began painting when she was seven. From the time she
was at elementary school, she won various citations, at the
local, national or Asia-Pacific level.

Her first exhibition took place in 1996. In the same year, she
completed her formal studies at the Indonesian Arts Institute in
Yogyakarta with distinction. Since mid-2002 she took part in the
artist-in-residence program at the Asian Cultural Center of
Elizabeth Foundation in New York.