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.