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"Taksu"
is the result of the experience at the ARMA Museum Foundation,
located in the town of Ubud, Bali, during the month of July 2009.
As is usual in my artistic career, the initial
idea of the "Meeting back" was relegated becoming a new
one "Taksu"
For the second time visiting the island of
Bali. The first meeting was in 1992, a very significant personal and
artistic level. During that first stay of two months I was stepping
into the intricacies of a culture that despite the alleged difference
was as close and fed my ego, it was hard not to toy with the idea
of "Paradise". The event that prompted this project, sixteen
years later, it was Love, not the Western love of big
words, but the Balinese daily life, the small details, for Art.
Never simple people around the world, enjoyed my work, as they did
the painting "Bali" in Padangbai. Thus the project
"Meeting back" was not without an air narcissistic,
although conscious discourse appealing to confront ghosts, fantasies
and havens in two stages, as Freud puts it, until we live a second
time no experience makes sense the first.
Once there I began to paint as planned, I was relating to everyday
life and the Balinese, especially with Agung Rai founder and president
of ARMA Museum. In this task began to emerge a different reality of
the imagined, and to outline the question that had brought me across
the world.
With Agun Rai spoke of simple things: customs, foods, spices, flowers
... and not so simple: ritual, religion, God or gods, the political,
economic, the role of women, changing aspirations of the population
... Almost never talked about my work, the challenge was assuming
lead out the project, so during the early days was manifested as a
symptom. As we crossed together the entrance to the gardens of the
museum, he insisted "All this is your studio, you can paint
anywhere", but I'm cloistered in my four walls, the interior
of the home study, in the shadow of the wonders of human and landscape
that enveloped me.
Beyond the protective shade attitude could have my recollection, the
fact is that concealed a question to my relationship with potential
viewers or critics, or perhaps beginning to discern that, myself and
work, mingled in a single concept. At this point in the process, questions
that had hovered months ago took shape "What has happened
to the artists of today, we are only a reflection in superlative narcissistic
society we live? What place does the work, which the observer and
what the artist? Are we just another product of consumer society?"
Clearly, this project was dealing with my NARCISSISM, my fears and
hidden desires of "What will?" my fantasies of "great
artist". In fact my viewers would not be producers and consumers
of art, who already know how to be happy, would be children, musicians,
waiters, foreigners, pallets ... People who do not simulate and my
work (or I?) would be naked.
Terrified and desiring went to what might be called "outside",
although we could say my "inside manifest". Under a thatched
roof discovered more intense green and red resisted the stroke gained
strength and the spatula danced as "Katcha-Katcha" (1)
Thus was born "taksu" in a tangled web of "Bagus"
"Selamat pagi" "Apa kabar", children playing
with my palette and jumping from the stage, ladies sitting practicing
English and watching my faster movements , quieter drawing mates,
construction workers carrying bricks and numerous visits varied. The
work took on value as I disappeared into the mortar failed to belong
in every stroke to be part of that environment.
In words of Agung Rai:
"The concept of taksu is important to the Balinese, in
fact to any artist. I do not think one can simply plan to paint a
beautiful painting, a perfect painting. The issue of taksu is also
one of honesty, for the artist and the viewer. An artist will follow
his heart or instinct, and he will not care what other people think.
A painting that has magic does not need to be elaborated upon, the
painting alone speaks. A work of art that is difficult to describe
in words has to be seen with the eyes and a heart that is open and
not influenced by the name of the painter. In this honesty, there
is a purity of connection between the viewer and the viewed."
(1) The
fire's dance in the full moon
MORE ARTWORK
OF PROJECT
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TAKSU oil
80 x 60
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Mana-mana
(everywhere) oil 90 x 70
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