TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Tatik Simanjuntak: Releasing the imprisoned talent
Duncan GrahamArt as a career has a bad name in Indonesia
Change Size
Duncan Graham
Art as a career has a bad name in Indonesia.
Across the archipelago the same story repeatedly emerges in profiles of creative people: Childhood talents were acknowledged, but families forbade formal study lest it interfere in their 'real' purpose of life ' education for a conventional profession.
As Indonesia is a culture of obedience, the smart kids dried their eyes and brushes, let the paints harden and clay crumble.
They became bankers and teachers, doctors and public servants, earning money, raising families ' respectable and responsible.
In the case of Tatik Simanjuntak, this meant training to be a lawyer, though she has never donned the black cloak of jurisprudence.
Instead she dresses for the workshop ' plain and practical ' and does what she wants, which is to paint exquisite designs, mainly drawn on glass. She draws on the Hindu/Javanese epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana for inspiration, using wayang kulit figures but providing her own subtle interpretations.
Although the term is usually associated with leather puppets, wayang is closely related to the Javanese word for spirit ' bayang.
For some, the puppets are grotesque two-dimensional figures who jerk and gyrate their way across a simple screen ' a poor man's TV. For others, they are a glimpse into an ancient world of magic and mystery that only a few can enter.
Tatik's transition to professional artist is recent. She felt she couldn't move until her father died, lest he become distressed that his daughter had been disobedient.
It wasn't until 2007 that she was ready to uncage her spirit. By then she was 40 and a late starter.
Has this caused problems?
'No, I don't think so,' she said in her Malang studio. 'That's given me time to mature and know what I want. I've never had formal lessons in art. I'm still developing and experimenting ' I've destroyed work that I don't like.
'My friends from law school days are always facing problems ' I'm not. I don't have a BMW but I'm happy, and I want others to be the same. I hope that can be done through my painting.
'I wasn't a good student, just doing enough to pass. I preferred to write poems than take lecture notes. I didn't rebel ' in Indonesian culture that could lead to a curse.'
Instead she's been blessed. Her 20-square-meter studio at the back of the town hall, perched above the Brantas River that is slashed in the volcanic rock far below.
She's in a cluster of similar buildings provided rent free by the local government to encourage artists to develop their businesses.
It's a good idea, though there's little passing traffic: Fine for a quiet work environment, but not as showroom.
Fortunately the few who have found her have been the right people, including officials from the governor of East Java's office, who bought 20 original pieces as gifts for diplomatic visitors.
'As a child in an Army family, we were constantly on the move,' she said. 'I was often sick and raised by different relatives in different towns. I learned to adjust and adapt.
'I like working and being alone. At first I painted portraits, but then started to draw from our culture. I realised the wayang figures were the first true art in Java, caricatures of characters.
'I didn't feel that I could change their features but I could add different backgrounds and ornaments.'
After graduating, she worked in a shop making handicrafts before turning to her first love. Since then her art has been shown at exhibitions in Bandung, West Java; Surabaya, East Java; and Jakarta, as well as her home city.
Last year she sent more than 50 pieces to Jakarta anticipating the sale of a couple. All sold, bar four. It seemed that the once-unwell child left to her imagination had found her place.
'As a child I loved to visit galleries and look at art books by myself. I was attracted to the work of Rembrandt [van Rijn], which is probably why my work is in somber tones.'
The 17th century Dutch portraitist was famous for his iconography, the careful inclusion of other images to strengthen the principal feature, a style also followed by Tatik.
'When I lived with my grandmother she used to listen to wayang stories on the radio,' Tatik said. 'I used to lie there awake, absorbing the tales and characters. I so wish that children today were interested in our culture. Bimo is my favorite.'
Also known as Bima or Werkudara, Bimo is a frightening, but soft-hearted figure ' which might explain Tatik's other passion ' teaching art to poor children. She started doing this in Malang's alun-alun, the town square used by hundreds every day for chatting and recreation.
This led to an invitation to teach at Sunan Kalijojo, an Islamic elementary school where she works one day a week. Here she encourages students to use their imagination to turn objects they find, including rubbish like drinking straws and plastic cups, into art.
'I also tell them about the wayang and batik designs so these are not lost,' she said. 'I have talent and I think it is the responsibility of artists to try and pass their skills on to others, particularly if they wouldn't normally get that education.
'It's hard to classify my work, or the sort of artist I am. I find the medium of glass to be most satisfying, and it doesn't matter if the surface is flat or curved. Special inks imported from Europe are used to make sure the pictures can't be rubbed off. I'm still experimenting and developing.
'There are many challenges. Unlike canvas, glass can't absorb.'
Glass painting was popular last century prior to the Japanese invasion and is often classified as 'folk art' by gallery curators. A reverse form was introduced from the Netherlands during the colonial era.
'Painting is expressing the wisdom of the heart,' Tatik said. 'There must be chemistry between the artist and the viewer. If I had children I'd let them decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives.'
