The Pulse of Paradise: Bali in Paul Nagano's watercolors

By Garrett Kam

JAKARTA (JP): Throughout East and Southeast Asia intensive wet-rice cultivation, immense archipelagos, extensive maritime trade, mighty rivers, and temperamental monsoons led to advanced civilizations with highly-refined art styles all influenced by water. Thus of all the artistic media, watercolor is the most suitable for portraying scenes where water is an important thematic element.

The Dutch preference for oil paintings, however, gave watercolors in Indonesia a rather late start. It is very encouraging, then, that for the second time in five months the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is hosting another exhibition featuring watercolors. "The Pulse of Paradise: Recent Watercolors of Bali by Paul Nagano" with 50 works opened last night at 7 p.m. on Jl. Tanah Abang III/23-27.

For Nagano, an academically trained Japanese-American artist born in Hawaii, this is also his second show in five years at CSIS. His characteristic style is a kind of "Asian pointillism" blending the best elements of Oriental brush painting techniques with Occidental esthetics. Large dots and pools of color mix visually with the surrounding white paper to create shimmering scenes of idyllic beauty. Illusions of light and shadow are created by various densities and sizes of dots and contrasts with washes of color. Their unusual combinations create the rhythms of Bali from day to night, youth to maturity, and life to death, which make up the "pulse of paradise".

Finding the correct balance between such divergent elements is essential in Nagano's works, for it adds a spiritual aspect to common scenes. Light diagonal streaks across Paddies at Petulu in Rain obscure landscape details and create a soothing effect. Yet the angle of the softly falling precipitation also produces subtle tension at the same time.

In Cutting Seedlings, more tropical sky is shown on the ground through soft reflections of color in flooded rice fields, contrasting sharply with boldly rendered embankments and young plants. Earth becomes heaven for the time being as new life takes root.

Nagano's night scenes, however, effectively capture the mysterious romance of darkness. The monochromatic scheme adds subtle dimension and perspective to what would otherwise be flat due to the lack of shadows and contrast. Clouds are outlined by the light of the moon they obscure, or are rippling patterns of alternating white and blue-gray as in The Moon Between the Palms. Distant rice fields become silvery-blue mirrors, while foreground elements become abstract silhouettes in View from sayan Terrace Night. The difference in mood is striking in the companion piece of the same scene by day.

Oriental philosophy emphasizes the harmony of man within the universe, a concept which Nagano often applies in his paintings. Figures, which feature in a few works, are depicted to show a sense of scale. Procession in the Mountains is in the tradition of East Asia landscape paintings with distant waterfall, misty mountains, and dense forest providing a dramatic backdrop for a miniature line of Balinese on their way to a shrine.

In Priest at Pura Kehen, Bangli a holy man ascends through a gate into a temple. High walls with tile lattices obscure any further views of the inner sanctuary except for the tops of shrines, allowing the imagination full play. Furthermore, the slightly tilted angle of the composition makes a common scene appear slightly different.

An unusual twist of scale, however, is used in Red Ginger and Rice Planters, in which sizes are reversed. Farmers in the distance are dwarfed by being viewed through flowers in the foreground which take on immense and startling details by comparison. The twists and turns of leaves and petals do not make this a botanical study, however. The curves of ginger flowers echo the bent backs of the planters.

Another unexpected perspective occurs of three men with their roosters in View from a Cock's cage. Their fragmented faces seen through the geometric bamboo lattice are like pieces of a puzzle. The eyes are guided in different directions by this grid, establishing a visual rhythm throughout this painting that plays with ideas of constraint.

Dynamic movement essential to the theme is created by nearly vertical diagonal lines repeated by a series of coconut trees and a cremation structure being taken to the cemetery by a crowd of Balinese in Carrying the Tower. Reflections in the foreground rice fields add yet another dimension and further meaning to the work: the illusion of life, the reality of death.

In his own personal way, Nagano gives visual form to the inner rhythms of the pulse of paradise. In an increasingly technological world, his paintings are delightful surprises and reminders of a need for balance and harmony in our lives.

The exhibition will be open to public today and will run through Oct. 28, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.