Sculptor Ketut Winata balances both real and surreal worlds

By Kafil Yamin

BANDUNG (JP): There is an unseen reality and unseen space that surrounds human life. Not all men, however, are able to perceive how this unseen space is related to their world.

That is the way Ketut Winata, a Bandung-based sculptor, interprets the trend in people's mind, especially in the form of art.

So real are these spaces that humans cannot set themselves free from their binding existence. What many works of art have done is represent the subjects of the real world and convert them to artistic entities.

Ketut is among the few to represent unseen reality and space in his sculptures. He explores the space, catches its relationship and represents it in various forms.

The result of his explorations is on display at the Yellow Hall of NuArt Sculpture park in Setra Duta, Bandung, from Aug. 23 to Oct. 5.

It is a perfect venue to host his exhibition, especially with its natural environment and the sounds of water flowing in the river below, leaves rustling and lizards calling. People can sense the unseen space and even the unseen world.

"Engineering the space, that's all what a sculptor does. That's what I do. But I wanted something big. Something extraordinary," Ketut said.

To realize his obsession, he tried not to get carried away by the "minor space" which many artists, as he sees them, have unexpectedly been trapped by. He explores the "major space" and learned that there was more to life than setting up things.

"It gives me the impression that installation art is only displaying things. If someone merely puts a used tire on a bucket, then displays it and calls the piece an installation and people agree with him, then what is art all about?" he said.

Ketut believes that artistic work is an intelligent and sensible endeavor. He has worked on this exhibition seriously from the very beginning because "I want my works to be seen as grand artwork".

He managed to cut down on 50 percent of his work time to produce one sculpture, thanks in part to a time-saving technique. He first makes a master mock-up of a sculpture, with which he presses in marble dust. Then he retouches it by sculpting it to finish off the piece.

He is serious in all sense. Curator Jim Supangkat said Ketut developed forms of stone nuggets into a construction by piling them in his sculptures.

"From when he starts work, he calculates the area of the display room where his works will be exhibited."

His sculptures are called a specific site structure, as sculpture expert Rosalind Krauss puts it.

With all sensibility and intelligence, the nearest "space" Ketut explores is his own memories of origin -- Bali -- where, as he said, "there is a real connection between sekala (the real world) and niskala (the surreal)".

This exploration has resulted in sculptures of birds, Balinese women, horses and other Balinese images, such as boats, trees and the sea.

"Animals, the sea and women in villages are strongly instilled in my memory. They always appear each time I am about to work."

He has learned that humans, due to their natural sensibility, always reach out for something, yearning to hold it in their hands, but that yearning alone only sets people's minds in motion, not action.

Ketut calls this yearning one of the striking features of being human, man's obsession, which he represented it in the sculpture of a man laying on a flat surface and putting his right hand over his left while gazing toward the "unseen world".

To turn obsession into action, one needs energy. The closeness of Balinese women and horses, a hardworking animal, to Ketut's mind was represented in Wanita dan Kuda (Woman and Horse). Then there will be a path to take and challenges to face.

In Ketut's interpretation, the sea is not merely an element of the physical world. The sea is another frontier to explore, to cross over and to conquer, even though the endeavor would be like an endless journey.

In Menggapai Cita-cita (Reaching the Dreams), one of his works, the sea is seen as a rising force. A man in a boat is rowing across it. The edge of the sea drops off as if the man is prepared to enter a neverending journey. It gives an impression of what Ketut perceives as "exploration" and "ideals".

These forms of representation are a sort of interrelation between spaces.

There is also a distinguished sculpture of Dewi Sri. Among the Javanese and Balinese, Dewi Sri is the goddess of the rice paddy. Ketut wanted to tell audiences of the vitality of agriculture for those who live in the country.

"We have our own symbol of agriculture. For generations we have put agriculture in a respected place because it means our lives," he said.

"But we are fascinated with new innovations, especially with products that center on excellence, although they are not necessarily worth anything to us. We are excited about producing aircraft instead of developing agriculture," he said.