“I want to promote interfaith brotherhood through paintings,” said Agustinus Hari Santosa, 58. He has been surrounded by the art world for decades along with children among others. He also has his own studio, Melati Suci, which was set up in 1979.
Simon Sudarman
Mas Hari, as the Yogyakarta-born man is commonly called, enjoyed his heyday with the studio in the 1980s, winning hundreds of national and international awards while touring various countries including the US in 1995. All this, however, has not yet satisfied him.
“The decades with children have kept me in the process of creation, though I wish I could gradually quit teaching. But it’s impossible to leave their activity as I want to sum up my whole experience with them in a book as a medium of instruction,” added Mas Hari, now finishing his work for the International Painting Competition , the Jakarta Art Award 2010.
In his early creative process, the former graphic illustration student of the Indonesian Fine Art College of Yogyakarta (now Indonesian Arts Institute, ISI) got acquainted with children’s pictures in mid-1979
as a contest juror. Interested, the contestants joined his studio in November 1979.
“I’d read about something inappropriate in children’s painting art teaching in school so I gave them freedom of artistic expression in the studio, which later led us to a series of achievements at national and even world competitions,” he said.
Out of fatigue, he finally discontinued his teaching routine, making his once crowded residence-cum-studio in Kwarasan, Yogyakarta, increasingly deserted. Instead, however, he has since been teaching privately.
“Actually I want to abandon this job as well. But as this becomes my livelihood, I’ve got to be realistic.
What I wish to do is focus on painting while sharing my studio experience with children in another way.
It’s through a painting instruction book, from which a lot more children will benefit,” said the man who once also studied this art form in the US and Japan.
His studio teaching years have resulted in thousands of paintings by his ex-students, which he considers an invaluable treasure, and he hopes it become something useful for painting art education.
“It’s my dream. I hope I have enough time and good health to realize it,” he said.
The winner of the International Children’s Book Illustration Contest, with 48 participants from Asia, the Pacific and Latin American countries in Japan in 2007, indicated that teaching art in school had mostly been unfavorable to children’s talent and even killed their creativity.
“Children should be allowed to explore unlimited realms including morals. Sadly the painting curriculum is very normative, while art education should be under concrete circumstances.”
According to him, a proper and empowering way of painting art teaching is that which gives freedom to children. He said unfortunately this subject was mostly taught by incompetent teachers.
“Art education should serve as an oasis amid cognitive subjects so that students have room to fantasize with freedom. But this has not happened since the introduction of the national education system.
The nation’s moral decline is inseparable from the sidelined art education that inculcates creativity, honesty and the like,” he explained.
Consequently, violence and other acts of brutality have resulted from the imbalance. Teachers lacking
in artistic knowledge will only harm the creative growth of their students, which is the outcome of
the educational system rather than their fault.
Therefore, he proposed that the system of art education at the primary level be reviewed and teachers with relevant artistic backgrounds be assigned, instead of being left to class teachers handling different subjects. “This is not the case today.”
Hari Santosa, while also engaged in the performing arts, finally returned to his painting world in
the 2000s, when he was curiously interested in religious pictures.
As a member of the Asian Christian Art Association (ACAA) since 2003, he has produced religious pieces not to represent his faith, but rather to offer religious varieties to his works.
“One of my religious paintings that impresses me is Noah’s Arc. I’m not sure why but this seems
to sufficiently respond to the living reality of Indonesians today and the call of my heart,” revealed Hari, who is also preparing his canvases for the Picture Book 2010 contest in Japan.
He also adopts interfaith themes in line with his approach that all religions impart noble values. Among such paintings are a Christmas story in a Hindu Bali setting and a big portrait of Siddhartha Gautama.
He has also been entrusted with the job of painting a Tripitaka Buddhist calendar containing 400 illustrations, of which 100 have been finished.
“I have no target for this order. I’m just doing my best to complete the job. Any target setting will even prevent me from working to the utmost,” he said.
He wishes to foster tolerance, a pluralist world and brotherhood. One of his interfaith inspired pieces, titled Hosanna Ho, has been collected by Prof. Dr. Volker Kuster from Leiden, the Netherlands.
“I’m also looking forward to holding a solo exhibition of my religious works, presenting Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic themes. They’ll be beautiful,” added Hari, who in 2008 displayed his pictures alongside his brother’s, H.Y. Tribudi Hermawan, in Jakarta.
