Widayat reveals unknown life in exhibit
He is trying to prove that his hands are translating his innermost emotions, his love for art, his imagination. -- Hari Budiono & R. Badil
JAKARTA (JP): No other words can better introduce the ceramic paintings exhibition by H. Widayat, one of Indonesia's most important senior painters to date.
To be opened today at the Bentara Budaya Jakarta on Jl. Palmerah Selatan 17, inside the Kompas-Gramedia complex, the exhibition reveals one aspect of Widayat's life that is known to only a few.
One of Indonesia's foremost senior painters together with the late Affandi, Hendra Gunawan and S. Sudjojono, Widayat, 76, is best known for his paintings of trees and animals. A master of line and color, Widayat's paintings are infused with a kind of mysterious magic that raises them far above the merely decorative genre.
Yet, he is actually well-versed in other media of expression, a fact not very well known to the general public. Although his name and works have often appeared in the local and international media, few know that he has experimented in other art forms. On the side, Widayat is also a sculptor, a graphic artist, a landscape artist and a ceramics artist.
Born in Kutoardjo, Central Java, Widayat's encounter with ceramics took place in Japan, where he studied from 1960 to 1962 on a scholarship.
"I chose ceramics as my first choice in addition to studying flower arrangement or ikebana, gardening and graphics," he said as quoted by Hari Budiono and R. Badil in their essay Clay Full of Prayer in Rona Tembikar: Clay Colors published by The Jakarta Post in conjunction with the exhibition.
Widayat chose ceramics because he felt he had a connection with clay.
"Other than drawing on ceramics in Yogya, I often worked with clay at Kasongan and Pedes villages," he explained.
The exhibition which features 85 clay works in various forms -- plates, slabs and pitchers -- was the result of a visit to the workshop of noted Indonesian ceramist F. Widayanto in Tapos, Bogor last year.
"Thirty years ago I dreamed of making ceramic pieces and having a workshop just like this," he said. That night, during dinner, the discussion centered on ceramics techniques. The discussion ended with one participant suggesting that Widayat paint on ceramics. Widayanto grabbed the opportunity to offer Widayat the use of his workshop, and thus the first step towards this exhibition was made.
Widayat's enthusiasm in his new venture surprised even art critics.
"It is not often that an art historian or art critic who has followed the work of senior artist his 70s closely for the last eight years has cause for surprise at a sudden innovation in that artist's work," writes art historian Astri Wright.
The best known example in art history of such an artist is Picasso, who, all along his life as an artist, explored new media and styles with the open-mindedness and playfulness found only in children and in geniuses. If Picasso and Widayat share something in creative breadth and stylistic similarities in some of their drawings and sketches, there are also many important differences between these two artists, which highlight both differences in personality and contrasting cultural ideas and realities, Wright notes.
Whether or not Widayat encountered Picasso's ceramics through publications or travels, many of the artist's themes and styles show an affinity. They both depict the power of the eye set in large broad faces; they both depict humans with horses, birds and fish. On the formal level, they both use a combination of fluid lines, decorative patterns and large areas of glazes to cover the surfaces of the pieces.
Widayat's faces, however, show a larger range of emotional nuances than Picasso's; his human figures relate differently to each other and to their surroundings, and where Picasso includes bulls and suns into his repertoire, Widayat includes trees and monkeys, Wright says.
Some of Widayat's ceramics on exhibition consist of three- dimensional monochrome forms with distinct panels of painted glazes; other ceramics, like the plates, emphasize the two- dimensionality of the glazed designs, more like drawings or paintings, she adds.
This is Widayat's biggest ceramic exhibit, ever. Yet, he says that it does not mean there will be similar exhibitions in the future.
"I am a painter. I wanted to exhibit, this one time, my paintings on clay. These ceramics, beautiful and long-lasting (unless it falls and breaks), are only to soothe my longing for the dreams I had long ago," said Widayat.
The exhibition is scheduled to close on Wednesday, Sept. 20. (lem)