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Bali Life - April - May 2007
There has been a recent tendency to dismiss European and other foreign artists living and working in Bali as creating generic works that invariably have sameness about them.
To adopt such a narrow view, however, is to ignore what the art making process is ultimately about; the artist as a human striving to understand and come to terms with what he or she is seeing and experiencing. Instead of talking about the artist creating images of what is out there, it becomes more engaging to examine the way that "what is out there" creates the artist.
One suspects that Rod Knudslien is very much the product of what he has been looking at ‘out there’ throughout his life.
Having grown up on a farm in Alberta, Canada, Knudslien’s vision became accustomed to the open spaces of the prairies, drinking in the nuances of colour, shade, light and tone, and inevitably forming the underlying vision of the future artist. At age 17 he left Canada to travel to Europe and the Middle East. It was at this point that Knudslien began drawing and painting seriously as a means of recording what he saw. The journey also afforded him the opportunity to explore the museums and galleries of the west.
This diary of paintings became the portfolio that enabled Knudslien to enter the Bachelor of Fine Arts Programme of the University of Alberta. Although he recognises that the discipline of formal study “forced me to approach painting, drawing and other related disciplines from many different angles,” he admits that he has conflicting feelings about art studio education, saying that it is important, “but at the same time somehow destructive.” This impression perhaps makes more sense in the light of something else that artist said, that “one has to produce a continuous output…to keep ideas moving, to keep physically connected to my work.” He recognises that although everything produced may not be important, it is the practice of having the mind and body connected to the tools that you use, that is important.
It is in light of these confessions that we can begin to make sense of the way that experience, travel and landscape began to ‘make the artist’. One almost has the impression that university was a necessary interlude that interrupted the artist’s development.
Following time spent in Taiwan, Knudslien arrived in Bali in 2002 and made it his home. He has been producing a consistent and gradually evolving body of work since then, although he believes he has “only touched the surface of painting possibilities.” His attraction to Bali, like that of so many other artists arriving there, was informed by the indigenous creativity and quality of craftsmanship, and above all by the colour and patterning, and the energy of the environment.
Given that landscape and particularly the landscape of his childhood played such a huge role in the nascent development of the artist, it is perhaps ironic that his Balinese ouvre appears to focus primarily on people rather than open landscapes. However, to make this superficial observation is to ignore the impact that the journey through many landscapes has had. Indeed, Knudslien instinctively knows this, recognising that his work is part of his visual travelogue and in that respect is very much a continuation of previous work, although subject matter, style and colour differ.
Although he has used the same painting techniques used previously, Knudslien believes that “paint and most of the other materials an artist uses to make a painting often respond differently in different climate and environments.” This observation suggests that by working openly and intuitively the artist enables his medium to interpret what he sees, and in so doing, ‘creates the person making the painting.’
If we look at the Balinese paintings, we can understand better how what is out there has made the artist. Indeed the artist instinctively knew this when he talked about leaving Canada. “I was reflecting on my life in a very pragmatic way leading to a kind of minimalism”, a reaction to the environment and culture he grew up in. What we see in his Balinese work is a reflection of Knudslien’s reactions to this new vision of crowded landscapes. In it we perceive that layered complexity of his surroundings that are changing the artist even as he gazes across the Balinese vistas.
Sian E. Jay
freelance art and design writer and lecturer
