(Courtesy of Otty Widasari)

A writer, filmmaker, painter, researcher and woman of many talents: Otty Widasari prefers to call herself an artist, whatever medium she is using.

Artist Otty Widasari went all out for her recent art exhibitions Ones Who Looked at The Presence (2015) and Ones Who Are Being Controlled (2016), exposing her talents and craftsmanship in different areas of art, from painting to videomaking.

For her two latest shows, the artist studied colonial video archives from different periods and attempted to reconstruct and rewrite the messages using different media. Otty’s reconstruction involved painting and rerecording the videos.

“For me personally, these archives are treasures belonging to our nation. But unfortunately, we have limited access to them. So the idea is to get this footage back,” Otty said of her recent exhibitions.

 The first exhibition in Yogyakarta last year received good responses from art critics and enthusiasts. Notable curator Amir Sidharta considered Otty’s exhibition to be one of the most impressive shows in 2015 for its “simplicity and sincerity while carrying an idea that transcends space, time and history”.

 The sequel, Ones Who Are Being Controlled, displayed at Dia.Lo.Gue Artspace in Jakarta in May, also turned heads with its unique arrangement that offered a different experience for art lovers.

 Entering the exhibition space, visitors did not see Otty’s paintings on the walls as they were instead lying on the ground, calling for people’s attention with their unusual setting.

 “I wanted to shake the location […] I wanted to give a different experience to visitors. I always like to disrupt,” she said.

 Otty added that her approach followed a revelation on how the existence of cameras as a new technology had dazzled the local community during the colonial period.

  She chose Yogyakarta for her first exhibition based on an intention to challenge Yogyakarta’s craftsmanship. Her rough brush strokes, which looked somewhat like scribbles in basic colors, were in deep contrast to Yogyakarta’s artists, who are known for their advanced painting skills.

 “I wanted to prove that art is not about the skills needed to create beautiful paintings,” Otty said.

 Born in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, 42-year-old Otty is a familiar face on the Indonesian art scene.

 She is one of the founders of Forum Lenteng, a community development project utilizing different media to analyze sociocultural problems. She has been making documentaries since 2002. Her latest documentary feature Naga yang Berjalan Di Atas Air (The Dragon That Walks On Water) in 2012 was presented at an international documentary film festival in South Korea.

Simple but meaningful: Otty’s painting style of rough sketches in plain colors has impressed many art critics. (JP/Ika Krismantari)

As an artist, her artworks have been displayed at various exhibitions in different countries including Germany, South Korea and Australia.

 Otty said she had known art was her world since she was 2 years old. Little Otty learned to draw as soon as she could hold a pen.

 “My father’s older brother is a painter and I liked to see him work with a group of painters on the street,” she said.

 However, a warning from her late father that art would lead to a poor life deterred Otty from becoming an artist. She then tried writing as a way to express herself.

 “If I don’t paint, I write, and if I don’t write, I paint,” she said.

 She then enrolled in a journalism course at a private university in Jakarta but did not finish it as she lost interest.

After dropping out of college, she worked in the advertising industry, where she learned about filmmaking. But her career in the commercial world was short-lived. She then met her husband Hafiz Rancajale, an artist, who was one of the initiators of Forum Lenteng.

Otty’s relationship with Hafiz made her rediscover her passion for art and gave her a second chance to pursue a career as an artist. She finished her bachelor degree in fine arts at the Jakarta Institute of Arts when she was 40.

“I needed to finish my study, I felt irresponsible because my work involves research,” she said.

 During her career as an artist, Otty has explored every medium — paper, canvas, celluloid and video — leading many people to be confused about what she actually is.

 “I am an artist,” she answered simply.

 According to fellow curator Manshur Zikri, who helped Otty in her latest exhibitions, the latter is an artist whose craftsmanship was built from her intimacy with the medium.

 “Craftsmanship is not about how good your hands are but also the intensity of the thinking process,” Zikri said.

 As an artist, Otty is quite intense. For the recent exhibitions, she produced more than 100 paintings in three weeks in addition to audiovisual documentaries.

 “For me, everything is the same. It just a matter of choice and in the end I will do whatever it takes,” she said.

 It is a fair assumption that Otty is talking about using every medium possible to shake up people’s minds.

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