Deconstruction and reconstruction

Stand back from Gede Mahendra Yasa's most recent appropriative paintings and you might wonder what is so special about his reinterpretation of the work of Willem de Kooning.

Take a closer look, a really close look.

The energetic brush strokes and the texture of the oil paint in Hendra's eight paintings on display at the SIGIarts gallery are actually the result of meticulous realist techniques. The texture is recreated; the vigorous strokes are what curator Asmudjo Jono Irianto describes as "pseudo" brush strokes.

But the series, which won the Mapping Asia section at the China International Gallery Exposition 2009, goes beyond mere technique.

"My appropriation of de Kooning is more focused on the making of Woman I, whose six stages were immortalized by the photos of Hans Namuth," artist Gede Mahendra Yasa said.

Controversial abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning became a hot topic during the rise of the genre because of the still-recognizable figure the Dutch artist put in his paintings.

In the era of modern paintings, when much is boxed and categorized, hybrids such as the work of de Kooning seemed to be out of place, not belonging anywhere.

Woman I became the peak of his exploration of the subject of women, a work that took almost two years to finish after having gone through several metamorphoses. Despite his unconventional take on abstract expressionism, de Kooning sits squarely in the realm of artists of the genre born in post-World War II America - New York in particular.

In "Reframing de Kooning", Hendra's process usually started with small paintings, which he then photographed. These photographs then became his reference in transforming the vigorous brush strokes of abstract expressionism onto larger canvases through a painstaking realist technique.

The result?

It is something similar to de Kooning's Woman I, yet distinct. Hendra's series tries to actually recapture the process that de Kooning's had gone through - a visualization of the artist's creative journey that the public can only imagine.

"So there it goes, the *missing' paintings, the ones swept away by the re-visioning processes, the imposed, the erasure by charcoal strokes, and the brushstrokes become the target of my appropriation," Hendra explained.

"Through the Woman series, Hendra seems to have re-entered the modernist era, an era in which the search for the essence of painting was all important," Asmudjo said.

"Hendra's realist paintings of women give rise to questions about the epistemology of paintings, regarding the boundaries of realist or abstract paintings, and the synthesis of the two."

Quoting Mark Stevens, Asmudjo said that the works seemed to bring together qualities that should remain apart, or when brought together done with irony and tact.

"If, to this day, Hendra sticks with the realist technique ... it might be because it is precisely by using it that he is able to investigate, recognize, analyze and explore intensively the concepts of abstract paintings," he added.

"Reframing de Kooning" is not Hendra's first go at appropriating abstract expressionistic art. In 2007, he studied Jackson Pollock, a painter known for his dripping techniques.

In a 2007 exhibition "On Appropriation", he made an attempt at reinterpreting the works of Richter and Twombly.

His signature style for his appropriation lies in the details. As in his work on de Kooning, in the past Hendra relied on realist techniques to reconstruct iconic contemporary paintings.

For the audience, the appropriation approach might be something alien, as we come to face a work whose originality one questions. But for artists, it is a practice that requires great technical skill as well as a comprehensive understanding of the art world.

Appropriation - the attempt to create new works through borrowed concepts or images - was all the rage, along with deconstructionist philosophies of the postmodern era. But long before it was labeled "appropriation", a similar approach had been taken, where artist sought to place existing things, objects or art works into a new or different context.

Curator Rifky Effendi revealed that the earliest known practice of this approach in Indonesia was by Raden Saleh when he revised Pieneman's Gevangenneming van Diponegoro into his own Penangkapan Diponegoro in the mid-19th century.

After only infrequent attempts at it, the movement started to rise in the mid-1990s through the works of Agus Suwage, Tisna Sanjaya and Asmudjo himself, Rifky explained.

Most works in this category usually borrow images and use them as a tool to question, mock or reinterpret established concepts. In a way, Hendra's work is probably the visual version of Michael Leja's book, Reframing Abstract Expressionism, in which the author tries to deconstruct the ideology behind the genre.

But, as Asmudjo said, Hendra's take on de Kooning's Woman I is a reflection both of his own experience and of his perception of the women around him.

And, for Hendra, art is always about the process. Indeed, through his penchant for appropriation, the highlight of his works lies not in the final paintings hung in the gallery. Rather, it is in the process of reinventing something behind the abstract.

"I want to trace the process that de Kooning went through in painting it. It was a long process that seemed unending," Hendra said.

"That is what art is all about."

"Hendra's Woman: Reframing De Kooning" is at SIGIarts gallery, Jl. Mahakam I No. 11, until June 18.