Teen artist has monsters as central theme
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
He is only 12 years old and has just graduated from an elementary school. However, Wiku Pulangasih of Yogyakarta has created some 15,000 drawings and paintings of mostly watercolor on paper and more than 200 acrylic paintings on large canvas.
His acrylic on canvas paintings are currently on exhibit at the Sudut Gallery in Yogyakarta. Nine of them are quite large measuring some 5 meters by 2 meters.
The exhibit, entitled The World Cup Mystery, which is also the title of a piece on display, was inspired by the recent 2002 World Cup Championship in Korea and Japan.
"This year's World Cup, as I saw it, was really full of mysteries. Many unpredictable things occurred. Common sense and on-paper calculations just didn't work," said Wiku. He mentioned several big names such as such as Argentina, France, and Uruguay that crashed out in early rounds.
"I think God had intervened in the big event this time and gave us many surprises," said Wiku, who has started painting as a toddler.
In The World Cup Mystery he has a portrayal of the France's balding wonder, Zinedine Zidane wearing an odd look on his face walking off the soccer field in disgrace while other players laughed at him.
In another work, he portrays goalkeeper Toni Sylva of the underdog team of Senegal as having long and winding arms with the fists in the shape of heads.
"It's as if Sylva's hands are able to think like heads do and candidly catch the ball," he said.
Other renowned soccer stars that Wiku has featured include Gabriel Batistuta of Argentina, Miroslav Klose of Germany and David Beckham of England.
In The World Cup Mystery, Wiku divided the huge canvas with vertical dark lines into five different squares of different sizes in which he describes different scenes of the championship according to his own imagination.
In fact, weird and imaginative figures, monsters, ghosts and characters from the Greek mythology have long been the main figures in his paintings.
"He read 18 books on Greek mythology in only three months when he was still in kindergarten," Wiku's father, theater actor Sriharjanto Sahid, 41, said.
The little artist has been getting inspiration from all possible sources, books, newspapers, videogames, tv programs and real-life experiences.
Wiku also exhibits eight paintings with different themes albeit still featuring deformed figures.
In A Story from Beijing that was dominated by golden yellow color, Wiku presents the monkey in Chinese folk tales Sun Go Kong as his central figure. The monkey has a tail of a dragon, symbolizing one's never-ending conflicts.
"I was inspired by an opera I watched while visiting Beijing two years ago," said Wiku, adding that his visit to China and Malaysia in 2000 had inspired him a lot and helped him create at least two paintings: A Story from Beijing and A night in Kuala Lumpur.
In fact, he said, it was also the visits that encouraged him to start making huge size acrylic paintings on canvas, especially after seeing the Great Wall of China, the Petronas Tower in Malaysia, the giant Buddhist statues and Kwan Im Goddess statue.
Wiku is planning to make another 20 very large paintings this year.
Born in Yogyakarta on Dec. 20, 1989, Wiku is the eldest of five siblings the famous Sriharjanto. Wiku's mother, Woro Anindyah also is a well-known painter.
The little prodigy reportedly started painting when he was only 10 months old starting with some abstract paintings. He had his first solo exhibition in 1992 when he was only 2 and a half years old.
His younger sisters Seruni Bojawati, 11, and Ratu Pandan Wangi, 7, are also talented painters and so is his two- year-old younger brother Satrio Kinasih.
The exhibition runs until July 14, 2002, at Sudut Gallery, Jl. Langenarjan 12A, Yogyakarta, Tel. 0818268561.