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Re-culture memo-iR - April 2008
Children's World in Japin's Paintings
By Jules O Bawole
M. Japin was born in Ambarawa Feb 23, 1959. He has a simple reason on why he promotes children as his subject. ”I love children because they are ”unpretentious and candid”.
I mark the words : ”unprentitious” and ”candid”. The word ”candid” here, in my opinion, has an implication to the perspective, perception, and decision. While the words ”unpretentious” tend to have an implication of expression.
Japin's opinion about children is a perspective which started from the comparison of a situation and a condition between how adults and children deal with reality. Adults see reality as a complex symptom that has to be viewed selectively and rationally before making any conclusion or reponse. Meanwhile, children react to the reality intuitively and spontaneously.
The responses that children give about reality can be found in the play phenomena. The world of playing , according to the children's psychologist is a transformation of the children towards reality. Japin aims to explore that area. From his fifteen pantings showed in his solo exibition entitled ”Re- Culture Memo-iR”, most of the paintings are about children who are in the midst of their game.
The playing activities of children are made by Japin accurately by showing the expression of faces and gestural articulation (body language). In his ”Common Interest”, he drew three children hanging out with their kites with two children squating showing different grimaces to their stooping friend. Each personal expression are drawn distinctly. Shape of the body gestures is expressed dynamically. This silence representation implies there is a sound communication among the three children.
To Japin, children focus more in the playing and fun atmosphere rather than being strickly competitive. In his ”Encouragement”, Japin drew two children eating a hanging ’kerupuk’ or crackers. One child behind them is cheering his friends. This painting draws a race scene and Japin chose to capture the joy of playing for a competition and not a strict battle to be an envious winner. Playing is a medium where children transfer their energy to do activites. Through games, a child involves his unique subjectivity, where he is free to find possibilities, fill them, and build atmospheres according to his passion and imagination.
Speaking of children's world, we adults, have had and gone through the experiences of this phrase. When I try to remember my childhood, what’s left from that time was about the kind of toys and games I played. Meanwhile, the emotional experiences of playing were blurred. Japin's paintings allow us to open the door of understanding towards children's world that were past and left behind.
I often see how adults intervene children, especially for parents with their children. They intervene for a few reasons such as to protect the children, to give the best to their children, or to follow their own footsteps.
A Social Historian Phillipe Aries, in his book ”Centuries of Childhood”, elaborated that between the 15th to 18th century, children in Europe were assumed as adults. History showed that at that time, children were pushed to learn adults lessons or knowledges. The society then did not realize that the mental condition, thoughts and responses of children were different from adults.
In that same era, children worked as slaves or workers because they had to help their parents economically. This kind of situation still happens today, infact, in Indonesia.
The modern concept about childhood in the new Western mind appeared in the 19th century. This modern concept gave an emphasis that childhood is a process to ”become” an adult, as foundation of a building in shaping a human being. Children are drawn as pure, inexperienced, and need adults' supervision. Then following that, new knowledges emerged such as Children Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Etnography, and Medical Analysis, which were applied to understand children better. Lately, new topics are presented like Children Law Protection, Children Welfare Institution, Health and Educational Institution which principles are adapted according to the age and child’s development.
Even though childhood phenomenon has been concepted universally, it is the social and cultural reality which shaped the various characteristics of children and their world. In ”Puppet Show 2”, Japin drew a child who was topless, playing with the leather puppet and thin dolls with distorted figures of the Javanese society while the other two children watched. On the upper right side of the canvas, the other leather puppets which were waiting to be played were placed orderly in outline shapes.
This painting brings a very strong cue about how children accept the cultural reality participatively and spontanously. Japin is also very keen in presenting that scene, where all figures are infront of the observer. In my opinion, whoever observes the painting will feel a part of the audience/spectator of the child puppet drama.
The other paintings which reflect realities of Javanese culture in the unique children playing world can be found on ”Together as One” and ”Team Spirit”. Both paintings show how children transform a traditional Javanese dance, 'Kuda Lumping”, into a very fun game that brings happiness. On both paintings, Japin placed his figures asymmetrically on the canvas as his artistic effort to perform a moving athmosphere from the figures.
Even though Japin tried to represent signs of Javanese culture in some of his paintings, the cultural signs are now simply rare in the daily lives of children when they play in Java. Even in the area where he lives.
The kind of toys for today’s children are not simple. Japin himself admits that most of the children in his neighbourhood are attracted more to Play Station games rather than traditional ones.
Although a reality is a starting point for an artist to work, in his process he will include his individual perception. A personal motive from an artist is also captured by me in all of Japin's paintings.
Japin's paintings are the pictures of the children's playing world nuanced in peace. There is no conflicts at all. For me, he brings across the ”harmonious” principle of the Javanese society.
The traditional Javanese cultures stress highly on harmonious principles for the sake of keeping a hormonious social life.
Japin omits settings in all of his paintings. He accentuates more to gestural articulation and expression. Such artistic performance is a contemporary painting’s trend nowadays. Nevertheless, Japin's paintings bring me to associate them with Wayang's world (Puppet's World) where the background is plain so that the audiences' imagination are free to give any setting in each sequel of a story.
I know Japin as a painter who learns to paint by himself. He was never guided by any painting teacher. He worked hard to discipline himself in order to master the painting skill since he was ten years old. He used his father's photographs and other photographs he found from various newspapers.
In the early 80’s, Japin once worked as an administrator at the Educational Institution in Ambarawa. Meanwhile he also worked on pictures and paintings ordered by the institution where he worked and from his friends.
In 1990, Japin resigned from his position and chose Bali as the place to start his new life.
In Bali, Japin worked hard to paint and sold them door-to-door to galleries and artshops in Ubud. Up to 1997, his paintings were based on the naturalism style. Then Japin took his family back to Ambarawa and settled there.
Even though Japin is a self-taught artis, his artworks are as artistic as the Academy of Art graduated painters. In my eyes, Japin's paintings are eminently neat. The realistic statement is sharp and clear. We can see it in his ”Fruitful Catch” and ”Rare Findings”. Both of them are the accomplishment of a very clear tehnical accuration to the representation of water and the figures' shadow reflected from the water. ”When painting an object, I am not satisfied until they look real,” says Japin. And he will never stop until they are.
I believe that now Japin has harvested the result of his hard work and self discipline that he has done seriously. And the all fifteen paintings in this ”Re-culture memo-iR” exhibition deserve an appreciation, and so is the painter's persistency.
Jules O Bawole
Art Critic
