Wayan Sujana's maternal longings shape his paintings
By Putu Wirata
DENPASAR, Bali (JP): The themes of women, their inner exploration and their gender perspective are a major trend among artists -- especially feminist ones.
Wayan Sujana, a graduate of the Denpasar Arts Institute (STSI), sees women differently.
"My own personal view on women neither concerns gender perspectives nor their sensuality," said Wayan Sujana, who was born in Banjar Lepang, Klungkung, East Bali.
In his solo exhibition titled Perempuanku, (My woman) at Vanessa Fine Arts Gallery in Ubud, Sujana has made female figures his main subject matter, but his approach to them is different.
His longtime obsession with all things maternal is vividly expressed on his canvases.
For Sujana, using women as his subject matter is very personal. There have been many questions about the women -- what kind of women, why these women -- who appear on his canvasses.
A mixed-media painting on canvas entitled Selamat Pagi Perempuanku (Good Morning My Woman) delineates a beautiful woman with well-rounded hips. Wearing an orange headband, she is portrayed against a gloomy background expressing a moody and dark atmosphere.
In a painting titled Terbelenggu, (Shackled), he symbolically portrays a woman carrying a basket. Her tight skirt is slitted, a depiction of Balinese women trapped within tradition and modernity.
Sujana, however, is incapable of explaining his artistic and thematic concepts. "It's a spontaneous expression," he said.
He admitted that he feels like he is releasing a heavy burden when drawing female figures on canvas. "Like meditation, it reaches a tranquility," he said. The rest, he adds, he really doesn't understand.
Sometimes he tries to simplify a complicated concept in his mind. The paintings called Perempuan Bermuka Celeng, (A Woman with a Pig Face) Berguru pada Ganesha (Learning From Ganesha) and Trying to Calm One's Self, are astounding works that show Sujana taking on a wider subject than an obsession with a mother figure.
His mother died when Sujana was still a baby. A woman next door kindly breast-fed the motherless Sujana and treated little Sujana as her own son.
A tight emotional link between the woman and her foster son developed. "I have always regarded her as my own mother and when I realized she was not mine, I experienced a hollow feeling inside," recalled Sujana.
For the last two to three years Sujana has automatically drawn a woman's silhouette whenever he worked on a canvas. Sometimes he has experimented with Balinese icons -- such as using bold colors. He approaches Balinese philosophy in a contemporary way -- in opposition to the mainstream abstract expressionism genre adopted by his predecessors from the Sanggar Dewata Indonesia art community, which has dominated the modern Balinese fine arts world for the last 20 years.
Most artists grouped in Sanggar Dewata Indonesia use Balinese symbols as a statements of their self-identity. Sujana, on the other hand, tries to release himself from these collective artistic and cultural values.
Cultural icons like garuda statues, temples and padma (lotuses) are used to express his obsessions.
A women with loose hair like Queen Dirah with a gaping mouth, gigantic tusks and bulging eyes reminds us of the visual expressions of traditional artists, sculptors and masks makers.
From a sociological perspective, Sujana's works are a new form of Balinese communal art.
Like Nyoman Gunarsa who explores Wayang Kamasan puppetry in his pastel-colored paintings, Sujana's inspirations could be derived from female demons, or even the sensuality and beauty of Balinese women that is always portrayed in traditional Balinese paintings and sculptures.