Solo Exhibition by Teja Astawa (2011)
Early in 2011, Teja Astawa had his Solo Exhibition at the Tonyraka Art Gallery in Ubud, Bali. Teja is an artist from Sanur, Bali whose artwork expresses visual
uniqueness. His artwork representation
is a development of Wayang stories with the roots of style of Kamasan Painting. Teja Astawa is a hidden potential of
a highly creative balinese artist who has created artworks of highly characterized
and aesthetic qualities. Hopefully,
Teja’s artwork representation in this exhibition may perhaps offer contribution
to contemporary art development.
CURATORIAL WRITING
by I Wayan Seriyoga Parta*
The process in creating an artwork is
stimulated by various factors, one of them is the artist’s personal experience
that has made an impact on his life so deeply that it turns into an inspiration
as well as motivation in the creative process of an artwork. In the context of
creating an artwork, the experience then undergoes an internal process and
interpretation of the artist. It is
later reconstructed into a medium of artwork.
The reconstruction process itself is related to re-imagining, the
implementation plane of which may differ for each individual artist. In the same way, the creating process of Teja
Astawa, a young artist who grew up in Sanur, Bali coastal environment is
executed. Teja’s artworks raise his
childhood experience from the time he played with ‘kamboja’ and jack fruit
leaves which were shaped into wayang figures.
Together with his friends, Teja would often play with those leaves in
his free imagination of childhood cheerfulness.
That childhood experience has printed
a deep impression on him and made a room for his artistic life as he grows up,
particularly in painting medium. Teja
then re-weaves fragments of his experience and recreates those wayang figures
in his artwork. In order to begin the
reconstruction process Teja has carried out a field study observing the
varieties of wayang and their individual characteristic symbolism.
By the time he pours out these wayang fragments onto canvas, Teja does
not immediately introduce stories from wayang world, most of these generally come
from Ramayana and Mahabarata epics. Teja
does not present a theme solely from the stories of the great epics, on the
other hand, he releases its association with the epic narrative role it plays
and treats wayang only as a medium to play the role conveyed by the ‘Dalang’
(the narrator). In wayang world, there
are boundaries that have to be thought about, i.e. the figure’s form to begin
with, its attribute, and the character attached to the figure, in addition, the
story boundaries surrounding the great epics, Ramayana and Mahabarata.
Teja Astawa chooses to
unleash himself from those boundaries by painting the wayang figure according
to his free imagination. Just like his
freedom when he played with leaf wayang during his childhood, in the process of
creating his artwork, Teja reconstructs the experience. The experience which has settled in his
subconscious memory has to be reemerged to the surface and that experience in
itself has undergone some overlaps with other experiences. In the process of re-emerging, Teja has done
some reconstruction process so that they appear as fragments that are composed
visually into a narrative. The
narratives do not have structured story setting as they have in wayang epics;
the story fragments in Teja’s artwork is a sequence of independent narrative
fragments which does not have direct association.
Needless to say, Teja
has previously thought of a thematic idea for his artwork, however, the idea is
continually improving as the artwork is in progress; spontaneous objects may
come into the process and are expressed directly in the artwork. This spontaneity plays an important factor
among the sequence of fragments in his work, and subsequently presents a
narrative. The narrative has certain
themes which are not a sequence of complete narratives, on the contrary they
are independent narrative fragments united onto the canvas plane. Teja’s works represent fragments of his
subconscious memory which often appears spontaneously while he is working.
Teja’s creativity process in his work is psychological explosions and impulses
from his subconscious memories.
The narrative mechanism
in Teja’s work closely resembles fragments appearing in his dreams. A sequence of narrative fragments in a dream,
as Freud says, actually has a structure in the form of a sequence of events
which repeatedly appear methodically, but in reality it is actually difficult
to understand the sequences as they contain symbolic values. It is difficult to
understand since the dream mechanism works in the subconscious memory, instead
of the conscious memory; reality in dreams is not the same as reality in
conscious memory. Like the complexity of
the symbolic narratives in dream world, Teja’s fragments of narratives also
contain complexity. This complexity
comes from spontaneous method while the artwork is in process. Unlike the subconscious mechanism
theory, Teja’s narrative fragments in his
work even appear right into his conscious mechanism whereas parts of his ideas
are taken from his subconscious memory.
Through spontaneous
mechanism those memories appear in his work process, as in his work “Monkey
Attack” dated 2010. In terms of outline,
Teja wants to create a narrative about Monkeys relaxing on the beach, and one
of them is even holding a surfing board.
All of a sudden there is a “Bum”(=boom) sign, a bomb explodes and like
in comic iconography, something is thrown out of a bombing ship in the
background sea. On the other side, a monkey is having a conversation with a
lady in a swimming pool. Subjectively
interpreted, those monkey fragments may be associated with Bali Bomb Blasts I
and II sometime ago in 2002 and 2004.
When the author confirmed this to Teja, he admitted that the thought of
the Bali Bomb Blasts did cross his mind impulsively as he was finishing his
work. However, he admitted that he was
not trying to portray the Blasts and associate the monkey figures and the coastal
background with a certain condition in Bali tourism context. Teja added that the appearance of the bombing
ship at sea in the background was only to portray a narrative fragment of
monkey activities. Suddenly the Blasts
incident crossed his mind and he impulsively expressed the incident in his
work.
Spontaneity method has
previously become an inclination in surrealist artist artwork process, just
like in literature e.g. a man of letters intends to create a poem spontaneously
by taking words from scratches of newspapers or magazines he found and arranges
them into a poem. That spontaneity
method has also become an inclination in Teja Astawa’s work mechanism all this
time. Spontaneity is the root of the
presence of unusual, peculiar, at the same time unique ideas in Teja’s work.
Visual structure in
Teja’s work consists of a sequence of human as well as animal figures in a
composition seen as playing roles in a certain narrative theme. It is a sequence of narratives about animals
and human, in this case wayang, which identity is not too obvious, since Teja
only inserts iconography such as attributes representing a king or god. A god in wayang is usually represented by a
string of aura lights in the form of arched lines surrounding the god figure. The themes are expressed by emphasizing the
figures or objects being painted in relatively large scale, and in between the
sequence of main objects appear little objects that often do not have direct
connection with the main objects.
In his work “Sang
Gembala” (=the Shepherd) dated 2010, the main object is a man sitting up while
looking after his cows and a figure of a woman with long hair sitting on a
table with her knees bent and folded back, as if feeding bird chicks. Out of nowhere, a mountain appears on the
background with a car tangled on it.
This is repeated in his work “Pengaduan Binatang” (=Animal Complaint)
dated 2010 which tells about a tiger facing a king or god figure. At the background appears a car drowning in
water which is painted in white with straight horizontal lines. Also in the work “Memohon Perlingdungan Dewi
Penjaga Hutan” (=A Call for Protection from the Forest Guardian goddess)
expressing two tigers meeting a goddess, on the blue background representing water,
someone is driving a speeding boat.
There are more similar small objects which can be found in Teja’s works,
mostly they appear as background by the use of monochromatic color, which is
sketched in black ink. Those little
objects seem peculiar and generally presented in smaller size which rouse the
observer to find out whether there is a connection with the main object or
not. The presence of the small objects
is Teja’s inclination to play on canvas, giving space for the appearance of
subconscious fragments and spontaneously responding to the main theme of his
work. Although they are represented on
the background and sometimes seen disguised in ink sketches, those objects
might, on the contrary, become the main aspect and play an important role in Teja’s
work. The little objects’ presence is so
full of attraction that arouses a question: which is actually the main theme in
Teja’s work? Is it the composition of the larger objects or the seemingly
unusual and peculiar trivial objects? At least, in the author’s opinion it is
the smaller objects that may become the main factor in Teja’s work. In terms of composition, despite his
exploitation of perspective approach, it
does not actually appear to be linear perspective. Visually, the difference between near and
far, large and small exists, however it cannot be seen as logically scaled
since Teja may freely and playfully present the smaller objects in front, the
larger objects in the middle and return to the background with the smaller
objects. Once again it can be seen in
his work “Pengaduan Binatang”(=Animal Complaint) dated 2010 where in the lower
part the observer can see a small human in a boat, painted in detail. The linear perspective logic, in this case, is
not in effect.
Thematic inclination in
Teja’s work is simple in nature and it expresses animal themes which remind us
of Tantri stories (fable), and is set in unique smaller objects that express
independent narrative. Presented in
simple manner, not burdened by narrative symbolism which is full of connotation
and philosophy, like wayang epics or Tantri stories, Teja Astawa’s works offer
lighter narrative themes, sometimes funny looking, another time seriously
looking, full of peculiarity and also uniqueness. The smaller objects might rouse a question
about the association between the main object, that appears as if it does have
a direct connection, and the sequence of a whole complete connotation. However, in reality, the sequence of meanings
in Teja’s work does not have a whole connectedness, since it contains
fragmental puzzles which often appear in impulsive mechanism. They appear impulsively in his work process,
spontaneously emerge from his subconscious memory, and quietly come out through the depths of
Teja’s imagination.
Looking at it from the
point of view of art language, Teja grasps wayang forms and unleash them from
their forms and attributes that standardized them within certain
boundaries. Beginning from the eyes,
eyebrows, mouth, posture and body gesture up to the varieties of attributes
each figure has, as Teja does not present a wayang story or narrative, in his
work he unleashes them from all standard rules of wayang painting. He develops wayang characters and adapts them
to his own imagination, wayang as an artwork that in itself is a deformed artwork distorted from
its depiction, then reprocesses it into a new proportion, i.e. by giving a
bigger head with a more plastic anatomy,
resembling human anatomy, unlike the usual thinner wayang figure, and by
simplifying their clothing attributes.
In the context of
creative process, Teja is recreating a new form and structure of wayang by
removing it from the standardized structure.
Teja has committed distortion towards wayang structure, turned it into
new art language and adjusted it to his creativity. He re-presents it in a new art style,
distinctive and unique, in conformity with his own characteristic that is full
of spontaneity as he communicates his ideas.
Taking all relevant factors into account, Teja’s artwork suggests some
visual processing aspects, i.e. firstly, it is a matter of light narrative,
light, simple and open-minded towards connotation, secondly, it is about
processing art language rooted in wayang style, then he recreates it until it
produces a specific and unique art form; thirdly, concerning arrangement and
composition of art elements that exist in it, particularly in perspective
context which is played by ignoring linear perspective aspects. Objects in front, middle and backgrounds can
be contradictory, as all of a sudden small objects presented in detail with
high intensity appear in front.
In Teja’s works, layers of objects that appear simultaneously
and hard to be understood through linear perspective system or linear narrative
that introduces sequential structured stories,
are composed. As mentioned in the
above analysis, the composition mechanism in Teja’s work is similar to the
compositional inclination in a dream world which appears all of a sudden and
overlaps in a set of time, condensed with layers of various narratives. Narratives in Teja’s work are in the form of spontaneous
appearing pieces of puzzles composed in such a way onto a piece of canvas.
Yogyakarta,
December 2010
*I Wayan
Serioga Parta, born in Tabanan Bali in
1980, finishes his graduate degree in STSI Craft Art Design Department (ISI)
Denpasar in 2003, Post-graduate (Master of Fine Art) in Art Research Studies
Department, in ITB Bandung Post-graduate Studies in July, 2010, and at the
moment he is undergoing post graduate studies (Doctoral Program) in Post
Graduate Program of ISI Yogyakarta.
Since 2006 he has been a teacher staff in a Public University of
Gorontalo. He was a guest lecturer for
‘Collection of Artwork as a Lifestyle’ public lecture in Faculty of Art and
Design, Maranatha Christian University, on February 25, 2010. He has been an Art Curator since 2004, i.e.
Curator Team of Pra Bali Biennale 2005, Curator for REAL(I)TI, Art Exhibition
2009 in Vanessa Art Link Jakarta, Curator for Indonesian Artists Roadshow
Exhibition, Edge Gallery Hongkong, 2010 which was produced by El-canna Gallery,
Jakarta, Curator for Return to The Abstraction, 2009 Exhibition and Curator for
Medi(a)esthetic, 2010 Exhibition in Tonyraka Art Gallery Mas, Ubud Bali.
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