Widayat's charisma has three sides

Widayat's charisma has three sides

By Agus Dermawan T.

KUTA, Bali (JP): The 78-year-old painter Widayat held his third solo exhibition at the Bali Padma Hotel in Kuta from Dec. 26 to Jan. 3. His exhibit clearly displayed a creative power found in three aspects of the master painter's personal charisma.

First, Widayat is the only living Indonesian professional painter who has won acclaim for being capable of presenting truly unique visual representations. There are, quite possibly, no other works of this kind in Indonesia, or even the world. Judging by the available reference books, observations made in many museums around the world and various exhibitions, Widayat's artistic manifestations, especially his oil paintings, express a strong originality.

This originality breeds an artistic quality which some observers believe surpasses Paul Cezanne or Vincent van Gogh. It is an outflow of the Widayat's unique personality.

Widayat does not derive his creativity from books. Indeed, Widayat is not an academic even though he has graduated from and teaches at an art academy. He is not the kind of artist who is easily swept up by avant garde trends and predilections. Neither is he an artists who easily accepts the opinions of others. Widayat is a straightforward and active person who grows and develops by himself while standing firmly on his own soil.

This does not mean that, as a social being, Widayat never comes into contact with the works of others. When he first began experimenting with acrylic, his paintings suddenly assumed semblances of Paul Klee, Kandinsky and Miro. Widayat fully realizes this.

"It was not that I was really influenced by them, I was trying to approach them," he explained. This honest admission of closeness is a manifestation of his straightforward character.

Again, and this is the second aspect of Widayat's personal charisma, his works convey a straightforward interpretation, both in terms of style and content. That is the reason why Widayat's paintings, though serious, are able to communicate with the general public. For that reason, too, the words written in the exhibition's accompanying catalog that "the predicate 'decorative' in Widayat's paintings is easy to misinterpret" are wrong.

I have written his biography and have never encountered a case of "misinterpretation", as pointed out by the catalog's writer. Widayat's works are always comprehended as decorative paintings that are uniquely Widayat. Works that are not just motivated by a desire for ornamentation.

The third aspect is Widayat's stamina. At his advanced age Widayat still productively manages his creative powers. This kind of potency is equaled only by Arie Smit and Barli.

Assets

Endowed with these three assets, the winner of the 1993 ASEAN Award still manages to impress his public. Many of his paintings, although offering no surprises, excel in the synchronization of treatment of subject matter and the tendency towards a decorative painting style. The natural world, which Widayat has explored hundreds of times before, is again molded into naive-primitive compositions of form and shape that blend with daring textures in dark or earthy colors.

His Flora Fauna, Anggrek Liar di Hutan (Wild Orchids in Forest), Hutan Kera di Parapat (Forest of Monkeys at Parapat) and Burung-burung di Pohon (Birds in Tree) are examples of how the macro-world is made to exist in harmony with the micro-world. But Widayat also presents works containing elements of symbolism, like in his painting of a crowing rooster and Ikan Merah dan Ikan Putih (Red Fish and White Fish).

A number of displayed water colors and acrylics are no less interesting, although people are more interested in his oil paintings.