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Indian Master Late Mr.K.M.Shenoy-SIMPLY DRAWING THE LINE:CAPTURING FORM, AND ESSENCE
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Published by The Jakarta post ( Daily) on 2006-08-23
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Julia Suryakusuma / Jakarta Post
Last week I attended the opening of a exhibition of 50 Indian award-winning
artists at the World Trade Centre (WTC) in Jakarta.
The exhibition was dedicated to the late KM Shenoy (1932 2005) and I could
see why. He painted in a number of different styles, but it was his line
work that took my breath away - not because of its elaborateness, but
precisely because of the astonishing simplicity and beauty of his brush
strokes. He was somehow able to capture in a few free-flowing lines each
created in a single stroke - the essence of his subject, be it a cow, a nude
or simply a hand.
I was amazed at how such simplicity could be so mesmerising and magical.
Many people would find it difficult to draw a straight line with a pen or
pencil, let alone using a brush to create a series of perfectly-shaped,
precisely-positioned and elegant curves that together form the desired
object. To do this, the artist would have to be in such an intense state of
concentration it would resemble a trance, like a spiritual healer seeking
divine assistance.
I have said in the past that writing is a form of prayer, a connection with
the ultimate source of creativity. When I write, I am often infused with an
intense, yet gentle, sensual-spiritual feeling. It is a sign that Iım
connectedı, like the little indicator light on a laptop adaptor that shows
energy is going through. My best pieces are often done quickly, in a burst
of concentrated inspiration, as time seems to stand still. This is easier
with shorter pieces that can be completed in one sitting, but as I work to
harness my awareness, it can sometimes be true of the more complex ones too.
Little by little, my creative fixes get longer and longer and they give me a
glimpse of the sort of state Shenoy must often have experienced to create
such a body of spiritually concentrated work.
I have seen many Indian paintings but never before anything like the ones
that so grabbed my attention at the WTC last week. Mention Indian art, and
images are conjured up of elaborate, ornate colour, with crowded masses of
figures, activities and symbols from everyday life or mythology. Once,
walking in Delhi, I stumbled onto (and into) the Museum of Modern Art,
seeking air-conditioned respite from the sweltering, summer Indian heat.
There I found room after room full of an enormous variety of different of
modern and abstract art, but nowhere did I find the kind of rich simplicity
that I found in the remarkable line drawings of KM Shenoy, which seem to me
more Zen than Hindu.
In this way, Indonesian art is very much like Indian art. There are
innumerable Indonesian painters who work in elaborate, ornate, colourful
styles but very few who have mastered that uncomplicated, unembellished
style that precisely brings out the inner nature of the subject being
created. For true art is creation, not simply representation, reproduction,
symbolisation or imitation. And that is true too, of life.
The art of both India and Indonesia two of the biggest democracies in the
world - reflect the beauty, complexity, diversity, colour and creativity of
its respective peoples and societies. It also reflects our tendency to get
caught in the tangle of our oft messy, busy, dispirited lives, fraught with
political turmoil, economic chaos, social upheaval and moral decay.
Well, India is one of our great mother cultures, after all, a fact that
Indonesians donıt really want to acknowledge, despite the popularity of
Bollywood films and Indian-inspired dangdut music - even our independence
days are close to each other, 15th and 17th of August respectively.
With different configurations and degrees of articulation over many
centuries, there are now too many similarities between the two countries to
list, but there is one which I must mention here. It seems Indonesia has
its own Shenoy: the late Widayat. Ten years older, Widayat was also
versatile, and one of the few Indonesian artists who let line dominate his
work. I even discovered ink drawings of cows and nudes by Widayat that have
an uncanny resemblance to Shenoyıs! Hmm, did they go to the same school?
Life, whether in India, Indonesia or anywhere else, is a plethora of
problems and possibilities, hopes and despair, in a multitude of shades and
hues, all blended or simply thrown in together, just like the variety,
tumult and colour in the cultures of our two nations. In the bedlam of
everyday life, it is easy to forget that simplicity is the essence, at the
centre of our souls, until we are reminded by moments of calm like those I
found in the simple lines of Shenoy and Widayat.
Humans need moments of stillness and grace, of quiet and forgiveness, to
really live life, instead of merely surviving it. And so does our country:
we cannot live forever in the conflict, anger and struggle that has marked
every decade of our nationıs life since that first 17th of August in 1945.
We Indonesians pride ourselves as being a spiritual and harmonious society,
which is at odds with the current reality. Perhaps it is time now as
individuals and as a nation to draw the line, and say noı to the
maddening chaos, and return to our essence of peace, just like the
paintings of Shenoy and Widayat where all the lines, precisely because of
their different shapes and positions, create the perfect, unified whole.
* Julia Suryakusuma is the author of ³Sex, Power and Nation². She can be
reached at jsuryakusuma@mac.com or jskusuma@dnet.net.id
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