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Pintor Sirait: Believing in possibilities
Courtesy of Pintor Sirait His strong determination to finish what he started is only one of the many positive attitudes Pintor Sirait developed to carve his niche in the tough, competitive world of the artist
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Courtesy of Pintor Sirait
His strong determination to finish what he started is only one of the many positive attitudes Pintor Sirait developed to carve his niche in the tough, competitive world of the artist.
The sculptor is now racing against time to finish a made-of-steel, nine-meter-high monument. What makes the steel statue important is that it will become the icon of the first-ever World Ocean Conference/Coral Triangle Initiative in Manado, North Sulawesi, from May 11 to 15.
Spending some 40 nights at his cozy studio to work with his selected staff members at Jl. Mertasari in Sanur, Bali, Pintor said he was confident the public art monument would be finished on time.
The sounds of cutting and welding can constantly be heard at his workshop, located a few hundreds meters from his studio. It can be noisy for some people, but the familiar sound has become an inseparable part of his life since making the choice to work with this material.
“The truth is, artists look for material that can last for a very long time. I chose steel,” he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
Born in Braunschweig, Germany, in 1962, Pintor has carved his way to become a distinguished sculptor, going from one exhibition to another.
He said a supportive environment and experience he gained during his studies in the United States gave him the confidence in his talent and the self-belief to be successful.
“I believe that everything is possible,” he said.
“I am lucky to have been educated in the United States; I produced a lot of good work during my time there. I got a studio and I received a lot of positive feedback from people about my work,” he said.
Pintor received his bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Nevada-Reno, the United States, in 1988. He studied stone carving at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) from 1989 to 1990 and conducted research for his master’s degree from 1994 to 1995 in the United States.
The long journey eventually brought the soft-spoken man back to his home country, Indonesia, where he chose to reside in Bali.
Born from a mixed marriage — from an Indonesian father of Batak origin and a German mother — Pintor said he feels “very Indonesian” and therefore, he always tries to put some ethnic elements from his beloved country into his artwork.
As well as regular exhibitions, Pintor tries to put more color into his life by making video art, doing graphic design for newspapers and commissioned works for enterprises, such as for the Deutsche Bank in Jakarta, Singapore Art Museum in Singapore and Penthouse in China.
“They keep me busy and interested in life,” he said, smiling broadly.
Pintor said he experienced a significant change in his artwork after a series of disastrous events, including the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York and the Bali bombings.
He could not do any work for a year after he saw the shocking scenes at the site of the first bomb attack in Kuta, Bali, in 2002, which took the lives of 202 people, mostly Australian tourists.
“Prior to the terror attack, I focused my work on aesthetics and beauty. However, in real life, there is also violence and ugliness. Terror does exist. I want to bring the truth to reality,” said the father of a 12-year-old son named Pasha.
Since then, he has incorporated a violent element in some of his works, including a 300-kilogram life-sized Formula One car sculpture named Desire, the mottled front bonnet of which is riddled with 600 holes.
The effect was made by shooting at the car with a .38 caliber Colt revolver. Pintor said artists should be proactive if they want to be successful, especially in order to survive during the global financial crisis when the volume of transactions sharply decreases.
“Artists should talk to people and explain. They should be proactive,” he said, adding that there is a powerful proverb to underscore that everything is possible.
“Seek and you shall find,” Pintor said.
