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'Balinese Masters': Exhilarating journey through island's fine arts landscape
From the breathtaking shades in Ketut Moniarta's works to the intricacy of Nyoman Nuarta's sculptures, Balinese Masters: Aesthetic DNA Trajectories of Balinese Visual Art invites us to experience the lush and dynamic artistic landscape of the island.
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Innovation: The Owl (far left), Deconstruction (center) and Leaves (right) are three kite installations made from bamboo, paper, palm leaves and banana midrib by Kadek Armika. (HPM/-)
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f an avid art lover is given a chance to visit only one exhibition to gain a good understanding of the development of fine art in Bali, the ongoing Balinese Masters: Aesthetic DNA Trajectories of Balinese Visual Art exhibition should be his top option.
The reason is simple. The exhibition, running from May 25 until July 14, features the works of 34 prominent artists and collectives that hail from various artistic styles and expressions, as well as different creative periods on Bali. Therefore, it provides a sort of chronological overview of the development of fine arts on the island.
Furthermore, the displayed works – drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations – show how the Balinese artists interact with and adapt to outside influences, new mediums and contemporary issues. This is a very important subject because the way a society copes with outside influences reveals the nature of said society.
In this context, the displayed works clearly reveal that the natural trait of Balinese culture is cultural openness.
Those works show how and to what extent Western techniques, colors, compositions, metaphors and perspective were freely embraced by the Balinese artists and incorporated into their visual vocabulary, which is built upon and inspired by the island's traditional arts.
