Suroso's painting legacy preserved by daughter

Mehru Jaffer, Contributor, Jakarta

Ina, 40, was blissfully unaware of her father's -- Suroso -- art until he died a decade ago. She recalls that Suroso spent a lot of his leisure time in front of a canvas mounted on an easel.

But she was too busy with her own life and never felt the urge to stop by and take a peek at her father's activities.

As far as she was concerned, her father was like any other father. He worked for the Lintas advertising agency. He paid all the bills and was home when the children needed him. It did not occur to Ina to perceive him as an artist.

It was only after Suroso's death in 1992 -- when she found in her possession a collection of over 150 of his paintings -- that she discovered a new side to her father and began to perceive him very differently.

"My mother didn't know what to do with the paintings. We wondered where to store them," Ina told The Jakarta Post at the opening of a week-long painting exhibition on Sunday at the Gran Melia Hotel in South Jakarta.

While she sorted through the large collection she also spent time studying the art work. She discovered that she could not peel her eyes off of some of the pieces. This is also the time when she discovered within herself a latent love for art.

Two years later she gave up her job as a management secretary to devote all her time to caring for her father's precious paintings and converted part of Suroso's house in south Jakarta into a gallery. She now dreams of opening a museum one day as a permanent home for the works of Suroso.

In the meantime she runs the Ina Gallery, spending a great deal of time looking at the works of other artists as well. Over the years she has amassed quite a collection of both established painters like Ery Arismunandar and Yudha Iswari to promising up- and-comers such as Donie Sadono and Unun Fauziah Mustofa. In fact, Unun's canvas titled Lestari is priced at Rp 34 million (US$3,300) which is the most expensive painting on display.

Apart from the five works of Suroso, 26 other painters are also participating in the on-going exhibition. A favorite one is Budi Leksono. The 44-year-old graduate of the fine arts department at the Bandung Institute of Technology is a master at mixing colors.

The intermingling of the colors blue, green and red have produced some marvelous effects.

Bambang Hendratho's Pasar Kembang (Flower Market) is a recurring theme that is still attractive for its fresh treatment.

Rosma Towidjoyonugroho accomplishes the near-impossible by capturing the infinite array of the moods of women in an extraordinarily colorful and most imaginative fashion.

The watercolors of Hermanto GS work beautifully with his Nature and do it with such precision that is almost photographic. Yuli Rianto produces the same real-life effect in his work, and to ponder the works of RM Poerwadi is to be transported back into the interior of the palace at Yogyakarta during the heyday of the Javanese. Poerwadi remains realistic, detailed and yet refreshing.

Despite a wide variety of very talented artists on display, all paths lead back to the works of Suroso with his recurring theme of lush paddy and cheerful peasants. Suroso's art is a sentimental testimony of the self taught-painter's love for Indonesia and the unsung population of this country.

Himself from a humble family of fisher folk turned petty traders, Suroso was born and raised in Surabaya, later to come to Jakarta. But he was happiest amongst the East Javanese peasants who lived and toiled beyond the city lights of the urban capital. When he moved to Jakarta to follow a profession and raise a family, Suroso kept his romance with the green, green grass of home by repeatedly dating it on canvas after canvas.

But it is not just the pastoral themes of Suroso that make him stand out as a painter but his unique technique of using paint on the canvas in such a way that it gives the feel of standing before ancient surfaces smeared with peeling paint. And yet the effect is not of decay but of the wisdom and strength of all the years gone by.

The texture of Suroso's canvas is so earthy and so alive that it has to be seen to be believed.