Widayat a living legend of Indonesian art

Widayat a living legend of Indonesian art

JAKARTA (JP): The opening of Galeri Widayat is held Saturday
(today) in conjunction with the launching of a book on Widayat,
The Magical Mysticism of an Modern Indonesian Artist, written by
Dutch scholar Helena Spanjaard. The opening also coincides with
the artist's 80th birthday. Widayat was born in Kutoarjo, Central
Java, on March 9, 1919.

Widayat received informal training in art from Kartono
Yudhokusumo, later studying at Yogyakarta's Indonesian Fine Art
Academy. After graduating from the academy, Widayat taught at his
alma mater until 1988. He also founded an art organization called
Pelukis Indonesia Muda (Young Indonesian Painters) in 1952.

Influenced by the intricate and colorful works of Kartono
Yudhokusumo, as well as the motifs in traditional Indonesian arts
and crafts, Widayat continued the development of a style known as
decorativism. Widayat's works use a repetition of different
patterns of lines, dots and shapes to present incredibly
detailed, intricate and complex scenes of the natural
environment.

Although some of his paintings can still be considered
decorative, most of his current work shows a significant shift in
style. Perhaps he no longer has the patience to paint as he did
in the past.

However, his strong determination remains and he still has the
energy to paint large canvases. In order to be able to create
large paintings, Widayat designed a hydraulic device in 1992
which enables his canvases to be moved up and down, right and
left, while he himself remains in one position. He got this idea
from painter Abdul Aziz, whose studio in Bali is equipped with a
simple system of pulleys which moves his canvases.

Widayat's shift in style, in fact, has positively surprised
critics and collectors. They consider his ability to shift the
meticulousness of the complex and detailed patterns in his past
works into the energetic and expressive strokes in his recent
works an important turning point in his artistic career. This is
what distinguishes him from artists of the same generation.

Widayat seems to possess relentless creativity. Four years
ago, bored and frustrated because he was not allowed to paint
following an eye operation, Widayat came up with many ideas for
future projects. He intended to purchase 500 meters of denim to
paint a continuous scroll of scenes. Unfortunately he was only
able to obtain 143 meters of denim, on which he drew 43 scenes
from his life, starting with a trip he took to Japan.

The ends of the denim are each rolled onto a pair of vertical
rods, allowing the 43 scenes on the scroll to be revealed one at
a time. It seems that the artist got the idea for this scroll
from the ancient Javanese wayang beber tradition, in which
stories from the Ramayana and Mahabarata are told using a painted
scroll of wayang scenes. Widayat's scroll is a kind of modern
wayang beber.

Today, Widayat continues to create paintings which show his
unique observations and insights into many aspects of life. He
does not just paint scenes of nature or scenes from holy books,
but is also inspired by what he watches on television, his
experiences in international airports when he travels, and world
issues, such as the plight of Vietnamese refugees. It is this
amazing creativity which makes Widayat a legend in the world of
Indonesian art. (Amir Sidharta)