Elemental Landscapes

Myths, fables and folk knowledge have always been of particular interest to my art. Whether it was to seek inspirations for my painting, writing subjects or sewing ideas for my ‘Fables of the Hands’ side project. The extensive understanding of the world and to the extend of the universe from such natural origins and at times instinctive approach have birthed connections to oral and visual ways of sharing knowledge that to ignore the importance of community is to reject the learning all together. A connection to self, a connection to the land and its nature and elements, a connection to each other. 

This idea that human are somehow separate of ‘Nature’ is obscene and pompous. One saying of this subject that I have always find very affirming is of the sculpture Andy Goldsworthy “We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.” Perhaps this is the reason why artists have created works depicting or inspired by “Nature”, or people would seek places enveloped in “Nature” to re-established their peace. This then, should guide our steps walking through the everyday to think of ourselves being a part of the world and as Ernst Haeckel have said “Man is not above nature, but in nature.”

Alongside such agreement on nature I have been reading books on ancient civilisations and their uses of visual imagery that came through in hieroglyphs or rock paintings, as part of their continuous knowledge keeping and symbolic interpretations. Historic writings on Mesopotamia, greek myths and pagan beliefs were of starting points for such grand tales. Which led me to pose the question on why has it been so easy for me find these information, but I haven’t turned the mirror on myself and searched these realms in my own lineage. 

I grew up in the cosmopolitan city of Jakarta on the island of Jawa in Indonesia, a place that is always bustling and also rife with superstitious and strange perceptions of the esoteric, even though Indonesia is a muslim country. The deep roots of mysticism have gone back so long ago that it has been a part of ‘common sense’ in day to day living. Asking permisions to an old tree before resting under their shady canopies, rituals of acceptance from spirit dwellers before starting on construction, no whistling at night so that you don't attract unwanted invisible visitors. The past year I have been slowly reading books on ‘Kejawen’. In the english understanding would be that of ‘Javanism’, a system of belief that have gone way back when within the Javanese culture. It has aspects of traditional animistic tendencies as well as other religious understandings incorporated into it as the Island evolve with its' progressions over the century with Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. 

It has been really refreshing to learn something completely anew, even though these understanding have been around for a very long time though in the realm of otherness, even in Jawa. The connection to land is very important and is entrenched on every aspect of their rituals. 

Lately with my paintings I want to developed these studies further and take the time and space to collaborate on such findings. How can I visualise the red thread knotting from one purpose to another. The simple 'sketches' of acrylic have helped in braking down complex theories into tangible approach of landscape scenes that embodies myths, legends or esoteric insights. Renderings of what I feel is sometimes lost in the modern and present realities of today, the lack of connection and respect to places and history as well as other people.