The sky is not always blue in children's eyes

The exploration of new themes and experimentation with colors, which characterized the recent children's paintings exhibition held here from Nov. 9 to 16, provides proof, if any is needed, that children are not only creative but also acutely perceptive of any alterations that affect their surroundings.

"In our time, the rice fields were always green, the sky was always blue and there were always two mountains. These kids are obviously much bolder and spontaneous than us in mixing and applying colors, choosing compositions and presenting themes," proud father Agung Alit said.

Although most of the themes were upbeat in the emotional sense -- there were no paintings that explore the hardships and tragedies of life -- they were nevertheless no longer confined to the rice fields-farmers-cows and sea-fishermen-ships that their parents and parents' teachers were once so mesmerized by.

The paintings showed how these children, mostly from kindergarten and first grade, tackled the things and phenomena that they encountered in their daily lives, such as bustling malls and popular Western or Japanese cartoon characters.

And how boldly they tackled these themes. In one painting, for instance, the image of a swimming pool occupied almost the whole area. The pool was painted deep blue, the tiles in pink and the rest of the area in striking yellow.

Three persons, dressed in yellow, purple and red shirts respectively, were swimming in the pool. And that was it. There was no dog, no tree, not even a house.

"Their paintings show that these kids already have the ability to convey their visual messages in a pointed, focused manner. They identified what they wanted to paint, focused on it and discarded other unnecessary elements from their canvas. Thus, image-wise they are making very solid presentations," art observer Popo Danes said.

In another painting, the image of the girl was impressively simple and childlike, as were the five flowers the girl held in her extended left hand.

However, the ways in which the colors -- mostly dark blue, dark green and black -- were manipulated and applied were hauntingly beautiful and reminded one of the great Russian-Jewish painter Marc Chagall.

"It's a magnificent painting. It's no wonder that it has been selected as the best painting in this exhibition," poet Tan Lioe Ie said.

Organized by the country's only children's tabloid, Lintang, the Rare Angon children's foundation and the Galang Kangin artists community, this first-of-its kind exhibition showcased more than 1,000 paintings.

This impressive number of paintings was assembled through Lintang's weekly "Painting Together" children's events, which have been held since 2000 in Denpasar's main public area, Puputan Badung square.

The events drew a die-hard following of hundreds of children, who managed to persuade their parents to take them to the square every Sunday afternoon.

The team of judges comprised such personages as noted Balinese modern painters Erawan and Budiana, who laboriously shifted through all the submitted paintings to select those worthy of being exhibited.

"From the very beginning we stressed the importance of spontaneity, of the children being given the artistic freedom to draw whatever they wanted to, and to use any colors that took their fancy, as opposed to making them subject to their parents' wishes or teachers' instructions," said Lintang's editor-in- chief, Mas Ruscitadewi.

She believes that freedom is essential for the nurturing of children's aesthetic skills and creativity. Judging from the works displayed in the exhibition, she's probably dead right. -- I Wayan Juniartha