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 naïve 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 naïve dynamic figures, unfinished, has no end, forming and combining themselves, in his anxiety melancholy.
Mataram, September 2006
Paox Iben, the writer is an independent curator. Settled in Lombok.
RE~Fri Nov 09, 2007 10:28 am
hi ..Thomas Eller..it was sold allready .. sorry .but you can chose another painting ..i will update the new rellease this weeks with new painting... thanks By: MANTRADREAM
bli....~Mon Apr 16, 2007 11:07 pm
bli, ampure.. lama dah ndak ke banjaran sari. sudah tak anterkan surat kita itu ke lombok raya. apa sudah ada kontak ke bli?
saya sekarang sering ke penujak. nantik dah saya cerita. belum sempet2 ajak ... By: arief bedel (Guest)
