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Hanafi: Significance of lines
He expressed his inspiration of the word “home” through his Indecisive art work series, and his interpretation of “home” came from the most basic of fine art: lines.
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Creating conversation: Visitors chat in front of Indecisive #3. (Studio Hanafi/File)
H
anafi, a visual artist born and raised in Purworejo, Central Java, began his career in Yogyakarta and has long made Bali part of his creative inspiration. He has appeared in five solo exhibitions at Komaneka Fine Art Gallery in Ubud since 2001.
This year, Komaneka Fine Art Gallery will present its “Coming Home” series by bringing home artists who have poured their creativity into Komaneka. Hanafi, third in the series after Nyoman Sujana Kenyem and Wayan Suklu, is presenting “Coming Home: Home by a New Road.”
He expressed his inspiration of the word “home” through his Indecisive art work series, and his interpretation of “home” came from the most basic of fine art: lines.
His Indecisive artwork differs from his previous exhibit, “Back Door: The Noise of Java” (2016), which mostly consisted of line compositions that lead to figurative forms. Meanwhile in Indecisive, lines abandon figurative forms.
In Indecisive, the lines in the paintings, drawings and murals are not meant to form patterns. If any composition of lines resembles a certain shape, other lines negate the emerging shape, disrupting elements of an expected picture, pattern or figure. By returning to lines, Hanafi has said he is not trying to make a picture but rather create a description.
Through the non-figurative lines, Hanafi gives gestures to the strokes. This is representative of the new road being pursued by the visual artist — lines that generate movement.
(Read also: Another day in paradise: Redeeming value of art)
His composition of lines has no intention of generating a pattern. Every line, due to the freedom from a pattern, creates a distinctive direction, which gives the impression of a gesture. This way, people are challenged to get involved to contemplate the art.
Hanafi does not only make a description of indecisiveness in his artwork. He also spreads out hesitation in the exhibition room among others by freeing his work from traditional critique. This way, visitors have the liberty to experience the hesitation brought by his work.
In order to create the hesitation experience, the artist’s drawings are displayed both neatly and randomly, allowing visitors to get involved in the exhibition
A visitor approached a long table with a pile of Hanafi’s work atop of it. The guest doubtfully tried to shift a heap of drawings to see the one caught in the middle. He grappled with moving the pile but did not dare go ahead, assuming that the artwork was not supposed to be moved.
As he looked around, he was surprised to find other visitors lifting piles of paintings in order to see a particular painting.
The indecisiveness offered by Hanafi’s display is an attempt to invite visitors to reflect on the human struggle for promptness, permanence, certainty and truth. Hanafi’s bid to return to lines without patterns lets people change the arrangement of his drawings and even exempt his work from traditional curatorial effort in a kind of trial to find how indecisiveness is not just in the mind but can also become a hands on experience.
