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WORLD ACROSS THE DREAM OF MANTRA
Life is beautiful; the key is in the heart. Kahlil Gibran
Does the loneliness mean something? what is it really about?
You may ask Mantra. Or take a look at his works. In `The Little Girl
with Flowers` for instance, a naive figurative painting. Barely
innocence. Seems he wants to describe a pure, colorful and cheerful
world and that trough his own point of view. Is that another shape of
Freudian dream? Not in my mind, Freudian tends to manipulate human
subconscious trough certain combination of pejorative conscious fact.
There is a strange feeling. Behind all the signs he performs. A sublime
innocence. Neither he become a stranger to him self like La Stranger of
Albert Camus. World of Mantra not simply taking us back to our na?ve
childhood, which is negatively means `?escape from?`or a blow of
unsatisfied subconscious, struggling to find a way to escape and
becomes out of control. He is the shape of recognition of life
experience and imagination in one, taking his appreciant to cross the
boundaries of materialism instead of manipulating them. Trough his
works, he tries to embody the meaning without eliminating its
spontaneity. He let him self being read, and let them skim the
impression. Is that the form of distortion that he could not take?
Isn?t it life is a paradox? Depends on which part of life you want to
see and tell.
He realizes, he himself is the incompleteness. He set on the wheelchair
since he was young. Polio had taken away his two legs. He was close to
losing his childhood. Was not able to play like the other child did.
Was he unhappy? Perhaps he did reject his being. Because of
psychological or even pathological condition like other people do,
thinking they are living a meaningless life. But he did not surrender.
he struggle to put his life into normal. He does not want to be a
prisoner in his own life and wait for others help. ` I don?t want to
pretend nothing happen, or try to be pleased by lying to myself,
pretend I were strong or live somebody else?s life in me. All I need is
to survive and naturally communicate to others. Does every human being
have its limit? Some lost some less. Instead of letting him self
feeling lost, drawn in regrets, he turns his less fortunate into
fortunate.
Born in a small island, eastern part of Bali on August 22nd 1971. His
father, I Wayan Pengsong was a painter that later called as a living
legend in Lombok. His father wisely educated him; his father read his
talent and directing him to regenerate the family tradition as a famous
painter. His life was very hard when he was teen. His father wanted him
to study art in a high school in Bali. He refused; all he wanted was to
be himself. He loves electronics and wanted to be an expert one day.
But then he gave up the idea and feels glad to enter the world of art
when he continued his study to ISI Yogyakarta majoring in Fine Art
Department. There, in the city of art, he dig his talent in to the core
and settled him self as a modern painter. He strictly rejected to be
known by his father?s name for his hard work.
`My father may represent the pioneer generation for his effort to
develop the foundation of art in Lombok. But the improvement of
technique, styles, trend and ideology of fine art moving along with the
change of social and culture of the society.
Mantra could appear as a different person said Suzi Gablik in Pop Art
Redefine, she calls him as The Rebel Of Settled Hierarchy disobedient
art generation. An effort to broaden the meaning of art by including
some new elements resulting into somekind of kicth impressions.
He fond to do experiments. He create some glass sculptress sometimes,
or doing his old hobby, playing music (he owns a recording studio, and
at the moment I write, he is enjoying recording some traditional
music). He calls those activities as a normal effort to get his
self-actualization. To experience the fulfillment of existence, an
individual needs to go trough certain kind of manifestation? Isn?t it
true? This is another important process of his artistic life until he
finally fined his own style.
There is always something special about his figures, or his abstract
paintings. In cheer impressive colorful scrapes, blur and smooth wipes,
or the straight lines that forms such a high focus, it is very
personal, and emphasis emerge here and there, in a form of a tiny mouth
of a child or a young girl. Is it another form of modernity? Speechless
because too many things to say? But, isn?t it the view to the world
already broken into pieces? `I am born handicap, living on an
artificial legs and living away from the centers of the world, but I am
able to look at it with my eyes wide open. But now isn?t it the same
for everybody? Technologies have connected people and turn this world
in to such a narrow room to live in, but are that the essence of it
all? `
His wife Astuti (30), his three little girls, Astrid (10), Rara (6) and
Intan (4) had made his life even perfect. He has a happy family and a
settled carrier. Eventough, he is still wrap up by anxiety over all the
mess around him. It is not a mere pathological anxious, cynically
facing the change of world. He is emotionally involved in his own way.
It shows in his works, light enough to absorves or to just to have a
little look.
Sometimes he feels strange to the life he lives. `Wind of change blows
too hard, we are the kite with broken strings, but still this is not a
reason to give up. For him, art is about how to see and to express
something. ?I have been consciously searching for some principles in my
artistic life. The search has been among abstract issues manifesting
themselves as spontaneous symbols resulting from the mind so severely
repressed by automatism. They generally bring forth the language of the
body by reflex, as myself experienced it.?
He is taking us to walk across the dream. No need to be too far. Not to
lie down up the blue sky, neither to refused to be trapped in
Phantasmagoria of Walter Benjamin. He precisely gives us a lesson to
grab it and turn it in to power. As love does. Utterable, but
untouchable, exceeded the reality. So then, once more, take a look at
his work, those na?ve dynamic figures, unfinished, has no end, forming
and combining themselves, in his anxiety melancholy.
Mataram, September 2006 |
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