Watercolor poems from a senior painter's wisdom

By Sean Cole

JAKARTA (JP): Once again, Santi Fine Arts Gallery on Jl. Benda in Kemang has proven to be a haven for "undiscovered" masters. From now until April 30, one may view the poetic works of Tjeng Tjiam Hwie, a veteran painter of 73 years who is finally launching his own exhibit.

Tjeng astounds the heart and senses with his expansive, visionary depiction of Southeast Asian landscapes.

The serenity and sheer wisdom that emanate from his works will keep one circling the showroom, unable to take in enough of his intoxicating and profound "pictorial poems."

One will surely wonder at Tjeng's ability to so completely render, not just the size, shape and proportion of nature, but what nature inspires within us.

Tjeng holds true to both the artistic traditions of his homeland and those of his adopted country. Born in China in 1921, he later emigrated to Indonesia, with his brother, when he was 18. He then made his home in Malang but also traveled extensively around the archipelago.

Thus the unending quest for perfection of the Chinese master painters and poets, as well as the lush, swirling organic and animistic quality of traditional Balinese art can be found in these works.

Yet there is also the distinctive individualistic and liberated style that bubbles up like a fountain from the traditional foundation of all of these works.

Optimistic

Every moment of Tjeng's 73 years resonates in every stroke of his brush.

Each painting shows that Tjeng is a serene and optimistic man, meeting everything with a quiet and patient smile, occasionally amused and forever able to appreciate, and be fulfilled by, the beauty and wonder of nature.

Other than himself, Tjeng's only teacher was the master Lim Kwie Bing, whom he studied under for 20 years.

While staying true to his own vision, he has also attempted to emulate Lim as well as being greatly influenced by Li Man Fong, his friend and colleague of many years whom he showed with last year.

After years of joint exhibits in Indonesia, Taiwan and China, Tjeng has finally been given his own platform on which to "perform" his poetic renderings: scenes of Malang, Bali and other Indonesian landscapes and wonders.

The title of the exhibit, Puisi Cat Air (Watercolor Poems), is indicative of the theme revolving around all of Tjeng's paintings.

A tribute to the land and its benefit towards humans, this is what he wishes to relate to his viewers.

Like the masters of the Haiku or the scribes of ancient Chinese fables, Tjeng is able to achieve complexity within simplicity: to tell a grove, or a clouded sky, as opposed to simply delivering its rough figure.

Holy scripture

This idea also finds its way into many of the paintings' titles. In Puisi Tanah Lot we find the intricate (one would think intentional) curve of a Balinese shore.

The curling of waves resemble lines from some holy scripture, pleasing in their swooping and mingling with the rocks and the sand and each other.

The shore creates a path for the minute trail of villagers all bearing baskets, passing umbrellas as they venture up to the temples beyond.

The sky above sparks colors of the sunset (that is, both the actual, literal sunset and the colors of the sunset's momentary invocation of pause and awe within us).

Finally, nearly the entire canvas is flecked with what appear to be sunspots, giving one the sensation of a sincere promise, the organic and fantastic dream quality of the land.

These marks do not seem like accidents but seem to have created themselves -- as though they appeared of their own accord.

Puisi Tanah Lot, as well as many of his other works, contain another of Tjeng's concerns. For he is not solely interested in innocent nature alone, standing without visitors.

Many of the works also depict the inhabitants of these natural glories: their labor in the groves, their journey up the hill or in boats towards the shore.

Small people

Yet there are few paintings in which these people are shown any larger than the smallest branch of one of his monumental groupings of trees.

It would seem as though Tjeng subscribes to the Taoist belief that man is simply a passenger in nature's inevitable current, as opposed to the modern, Western conception that nature serves man.

Thus, the human characters in Tjeng's works are always seen under the paternal trees, working the nets on the shore, a small creature in the storm.

In a way, these figures often resemble the birds who are always in flight from Tjeng's trees: delicate and swinging gulls with black-tipped wings.

In Pulang I a boy pulls on the reigns of an ox, trying to convince the beast to follow him home. Above them hangs the ever present tree.

Tjeng's trees are stunning in their brilliance of alternately bright and subtle colors -- autumnal, yellow and orange flares that speak hundreds of volumes within a single image.

Pulang I is particularly gripping in that it thoroughly reminds one of an ancient Chinese fable.

The tree consumes more that half of the canvas and, at the bottom, the boy in his red sarong and the stubborn ox are set against an area of stark whiteness -- as though in a dream.

In Nuansa di Kaki Gunung we may see a culmination of Tjeng's themes and ideas. Here, we are met with a magnanimous scene of rolling hills, governing mountains, a fog revolving around the peaks and, ironically, a field of wheat shafts in the foreground.

Masterful wisdom

In this piece, even the trees take on a subservient role as the mountains loom and keep watch over the rows and rows of burrowed fields.

Deep within the crevasses of these orange, purple, red and yellow shades -- all blending and giving as the sun in the background sets -- can be found the minuscule workers, bent over, diligently tending to the fields.

This is truly a work that moves beyond its discipline and into heights of masterful wisdom and knowledge of the world.

There are also times when Tjeng seeks to find new techniques of expressing his ideas and emotions.

Sometimes this may take the form of radical changes in pitch, tone and mood.

Kuda Lumping is no longer thin washes and fragile, Chinese, paper lantern delicacy. With this work, Tjeng finds a new technique.

Here, there are men on fantastic white horses, woven in and over each other, bearing swords and teeth in raging combat.

The splashes of trailed flecks of paint all over the scene heightens the degree of fierceness and piercing activity.

This is certainly in contrast to all of the other works in the exhibit, but as Tjeng said (or, rather, as his nephew related for him), "Though he is...very old, he still hopes that he can improve, still grow, and maybe he can find different styles, you never know..."

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