Symphony of colors by Banyuwangi artist

Yusuf Susilo Hartono, Contributor, Jakarta

Banyuwangi, located on the eastern tip of Java island, is famous for its Gandrung dance. The music of this dance is just as dynamic as the traditional music of its close neighbor, Bali.

Indeed the distance between Banyuwangi and Denpasar (Bali's capital) is shorter than the distance between Banyuwangi and the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya. It is not surprising, therefore, that Banyuwangi has witnessed the acculturation of Javanese, Madurese and Islamic elements, with a Balinese influence. Bali, on the other hand, is also influenced by the culture of Banyuwangi.

Apart from its famous dancers, Banyuwangi also boasts a number of well-known artists such as Suyadi Kusnan, 44, popularly known as S Yadi K, or just Yadi. Between 1973 and 1980, Yadi was active at the Bulungan Youth Center, Jakarta.

Then he went to Banyuwangi and joined Setinggil Blambangan Workshop. Since 1985, he has actively held exhibitions together with the Kamboja Bali Workshop, in Bali, Surabaya and also Jakarta. Yadi has held dozens of solo and joint exhibitions at home and abroad since 1979.

One of his paintings, Gandrung Banyuwangi, was part of the presidential palace's art collection in 1999. Other paintings of his are in the hands of local and foreign collectors.

Yadi's canvases consistently talk about the "beautiful sides" of people's lives in Banyuwangi and Bali.

"I want to be able to understand the environment. I want to be able to present the behavior of people in pictures. I want to present the reality of life in my paintings."

His latest works are on exhibition at Galeri Cipta II at Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM). Behind the symphony of a million colors, we can witness varied activities such as a tree climbing contest (in Jakarta when celebrating Independence Day), gandrung dancers, fishermen with their boats at sea, women selling chickens, children holding balloons, fisherfolk carrying their haul.

There are also legong dancers, Balinese women and offerings, men and their fighting cocks, religious services, Rejang and Barong dances, a Balinese ritual, flowers, horses and even female figures. Besides those connected with Banyuwangi and Bali, some of Yadi's paintings describe Thai women in different stages of undress: from being completely dressed to being stark naked.

Yadi uses the technique of pouring acrylic paints on his canvases, which are made from hard cloth usually intended for shirt collars. This technique is uniquely his. He discovered it in 1989 and has since developed it.

As a self-made artist, he discovered the technique when he was once angry with himself and poured a drink onto his work, which he thought was a flop. The spread of liquid poured on the work looked like a sunrise shining upon his dark self, bringing light to him. So he left behind his realist photographic style, which he used to favor.

Look at one of his works in the catalog -- the original work is not in the exhibition, though -- called Our Model (1984), in which a naked Balinese woman is featured seated on a chair, with a towel covering her head.

It is not wrong to say that Yadi's realist photographic paintings were a major asset that allowed him to move on to his present impressive paintings.

If the darkness and brightness in his realist photographic paintings are the result of brushes and colors (for example oil paint), in his impressive paintings, Yadi trusted the combination of calculated and unintentional effects of the pouring and spreading of red, blue, green, yellow, brown (from acrylic and water color) mixed with crayon to emphasize the lines.

In other words, we may consider Yadi's paintings a collage of colorful pouring and spreading between darkness and light.

From this solo exhibition, at least there are three phenomena that mark his creative struggle. First, the figure or object drowned in the collage of colorful pouring and spreading, which results (from a particular distance) in the figure becoming difficult to trace.

This phenomenon appears in his latest works of 2002, such as Selling Chickens, Prayer II, Dragon Statue and Tenganan Girl. Behind this phenomenon, Yadi is trying to give equal value to a figure and the background.

Second, the colorful pouring and spreading concentrates on a figure by leaving the background empty. The figure becomes more prominent. This can be seen in his works Flowers in a Garden (2002, measuring 500 cm by 180 cm), Smile (1997), Sutiman and the Horse (1994), Smile of Lombok Children (1993) and I (1991), among others.

Third, the deformed figure. Look at his nude paintings Two Thai Girls (2000) and Nude (2001). Freely he makes the head and the breasts smaller and then enlarges the arms, hips and thighs of the models, who are actually slim and slender.

With these three phenomena, Yadi continues to make progress from his residence in Banyuwangi, some 1,000 km from Jakarta.

The exhibition is being held at Galeri Cipta II, TIM, Jl. Cikini Raya 73, Central Jakarta, until Sept. 5, 2002.