Walter van Oel offers more than just visual experiment
Mehru Jaffer, Contributor, Jakarta
Armed with a paintbrush and all the colors found in a prism, abstract artist Walter van Oel continues his journey through nothingness in a tireless search for the sacred. All icons fall by the wayside as he concerns himself not with the physical attributes of a deity but the nature of that inner energy responsible for making the world go round.
The 60 year-old Dutch painter imagines cosmic energy sometimes as shapes and forms found in geometry and often as a pool of dancing, primary colors. It is obviously difficult for him to imagine creative energy simply as a face or figure resembling that of a human being.
Arief Wiranantakusumah, curator, recalls watching van Oel work with mixed media on a 190 cm by 190 cm piece soon after his visit to a room in a Bali hotel dedicated to Ratu Kidul, the mythical goddess of the South Seas. The result is a shimmering work of art where a central oval shape is laid out by crumpling up sheets of aluminum and flanked by squares and crosses also outlined in aluminum. Entitled Between Heaven and Earth the piece is now on exhibit here along with a series of works born from the artist's travels to the Far East.
Forbidden City, a work in gold leaves, was completed after his visit to China. Van Oel makes the oblong shape stand up on the canvas, filling it with tiny squares or magic windows. To imply that all the golden promises made in the past have not been realized the painter puts a great big cross in the center of the canvas.
Homage to Chinese Characters also has a gold leafed background with a central circle in black, and an inner circle in red filled with brush strokes that resemble Chinese calligraphy. The entire canvas is sprayed with other colors such as pink and white. To stand before this kind of art is to join in a dance of never ending joy.
The way van Oel shades his forms provides them with a kind of magical movement. His blue circle suspended in between the symmetry of four cylinders and a red infinity throbs with a kind of reality not imagined before.
Van Oel's technique of creasing up paper and pasting it on a smooth canvas painted in contrasting colors and shapes is extremely effective in conveying the concept of cosmic order and disorder.
The Magic Square is very creased, painted in deep colors of midnight blue and used as a collage on a serene white background, as if attempting to convert chaos into clarity. The rough surface of the collage resembles all the craters found on the face of different planets that have been spinning around their own axes in the calm sea of infinity for millions of years.
To get to the bottom of the mystery of life van Oel started to wander around the world. He has been attracted to Buddhism for some time and his desire to make sense of symbols used in traditional societies brought him to China in 1999. For the past two years he has been working in Bali, deriving much spiritual strength from the island's reputation as the navel of the universe.
What van Oel has done with the black and white squares that are such an indelible part of life in Bali is unique. He has infused new life into the contrasting but very static chess board patterns by blurring the lines that divide the two shades from each other and imprisoned them within shapes like a circle and square.
Like all abstract art the ambiguity of van Oel's work is baffling at first sight. For it is far easier to appreciate what is familiar. However, many feel the absence of concrete images is most liberating both for the artist as well as the viewer. Over time it is increasingly appreciated that abstract art provides much more than just a visual experience. More and more people are beginning to enjoy using their own imagination to figure out the meaning of a painting.
Between Heaven and Earth exhibition runs through March 8 at Cemara 6 Gallery, Jl. HOS Cokroaminoto, Central Jakarta. More information at 021- 391 1823, 391 8761 and 324 505.