Copyright by Carla Bianpoen
THE INDONESIAN OBSERVER, Saturday-Sunday, December 16-17, 2000

The Icons of Astari Rasjid

By Carla Bianpoen

As Astari Rasjid's second solo exhibition within a year opened at the Ganesha Gallery of the Four Season's hotel in Bali on December 11,  one can't help admiring the prominence of personal depth, the maturity of her professional skills, as well as her inventiveness, all ov which seem to gain an extra dimension with every exhibition.

Amour-Amour
(sculpture in bronze)

Her artistic narratives usually weave her personal story into the larger fabric of issues  haunting a woman's life in the social context of tradition and politics. Realizing the detrimental impact of certain traditional concepts on women's lives,  Astari's previous works used to  challenge the conventional of her Javanese upbringing. Her ways used to be as subtle as the culture she was born into, although a growing impatience began to surface in her first solo exhibition in December 1999.

Challenging the habits of tradition still occur in some of the fourteen works on display in the current exhibition named ‘Wings and Excursions". In these paintings, Javanese couples in beautiful traditional ceremonial attires give the impression of serenity and harmony, although they boil on the inside, represented by such symbols as a volcano on the point of erupting. 'Patiently Waiting' (mixed media, oil on canvas, 44 x 47 cm), and 'Silent Outburst' (mixed media, oil on canvas 74.5 x 54 cm) were part of the exhibition of Indonesian contemporary painters in the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art last October. So was also 'Discontinued Episode' (mixed media, oil on canvas 94.5 x 75.5 cm) which consists of three panels, a Javanese bride and groom each covering one panel and separated by a middle panel on which finely integrated newspaper clippings portray political landscapes with a volcano on the point of erupting and the closed door suggesting the gate to a better future.

Paintings sometimes follow a  pre-planned patter, but as Astari reveals, there are times when her paintings are created from the subconscious. One such painting is the ‘Field of Vision'.   While drawing parallels with the ‘gunungan' or the tree of life with which each wayang performance opens and closes,  the female is depicted from the back and the front. The front reflects harmony while the back symbolises battle and the battle field. Painted in the fashion of the classics, yet with that certain touch that has marked Astari's paintings until the present, such works retain their fascinating and intriguing quality by a blend of metaphysical content, artistic imagery and painterly skills.

After challenging traditional hurdles and subtly trying to reformulate certain concepts which are detrimental to women, Astari realizes that the shackles are actually not only in traditional societies, but also stretch into modern life as well.

In the current exhibition Astari Rasjid strikes the viewer as a feminist in the true sense of the word.  As a woman who has increasingly become aware of herself as a distinct part of humanity, she presents images of women who boldly aspire to set themselves from the shackles, and any form of shackles, that prevent them from pursuing their own path.

Yet, as bold and transparent as the issue may be, the manner it is dealt with is as refined as ever, weaving myths, legends and realities of women's lives into intriguing narratives in a fashion suggesting a blend of fairy tales and iconography.

Icons have held Astari's fascination ever since she visited Russia last October. Meaning 'likeness' the icon originated from Byzantium, and developed into images of saints and people of significance in the religious realms. The Sussion icon, now a part of Russian art and culture, depicts features specific to that culture.

Astari's works may sometimes have the appearance of such icons, yet she integrates goddesses and symbols of Indonesian myths and legends and plies local attributes as well. 

Placed against a black background, the winged women in the icons of Astari Rasjid are like metaphors for the female soul yearning to fly into a space free from any such shackles. Like icons standing out in the darkness of a Russian church, Astari's works bring out the goddess that exists in the being of every woman.

'Wings and Excursions', the title of the exhibition, exudes a yearning for a space where women can rid  themselves of the shackles of life. However, as high as female aspirations may dream to fly, getting there is not as easy as one would wish. Even the wings which should fly them to freedom, run into foul weather, as evident in the ‘Shackled Cinderella', and in the sculpture titled ‘Landscape of Wings'. The key to freedom evidently is not to be sought in others,  but within tje spiritual power of one's own mind.

The 'Wings and Excursions' series has been an eye-opening process for Astari. ‘While making the works, I began to discover certain realities, she reveals. Women tend to make too many sacrifices without giving a thought to the cost, which results in them lagging behind in important matters most of the time. This is particularly reflected in the painting titled ‘Solitarie', where a woman in a red, strapless evening gown with wings at the back- as if ready to fly-  holds  a bouquet in her hands as a metaphor for sacrifice, and an alarm clock indicating the time as five past six.

A woman has so many responsibilities that there is hardly time to spend on herself. As a mother she must feed the baby, as a wife she is her husband's lover. She is also the household maid, while she must also be well-groomed if only to satisfy her own sense of well-being. Depicting such ‘burdens', Astari presents ‘The Lover' (mixed media, oil on canvas, 105 x 81 cm), a modern woman with multiple hands. Still in the mood of overwhelming responsibilities, ‘The Slayer' (mixed media, oil on canvas, 104.5 x 82.5 cm) portrays a woman with a baby on her back and a stick in her hand, ready to kill the dragon which symbolises the pestering do's and don't's prescribed by society. When pushed to the utmost, a peaceful woman can transcend into ‘rangda', the symbol of evil in Bali, says the artist.

There is a sense of profound unhappiness at broken hopes and collapsing aspirations.  In ‘Shackled Cinderella' for instance, Cinderella is taking off her mask, ready to use her wings and fly into a new world, but one foot is still chained.  In the sculpture in mixed media, titled 'Landscape of 'Wings, a vision is suggested about the spirit that passes the holy mount through the Puri Besakih into the white clouds. But the sculpture is fastened to a piece of wood, thus framing the wing and hampering it from spread into the open.

The sculptures ‘Post-Natal Corset' and ‘Amour-Armor' are reflections on love, violence and self protection. Having been a fashion designer, Astari has the knowledge of an expert when it comes to fashion and how to keep the body trim. The corset and the long torso are tools to beautify the shape of the body, but at the same time they reflect how women have fallen prey to the male gaze. In Post-Natal Corset, the slightly carved  egg in natural wood below the corset silently tells the story of birth and re-birth, but above all it is a metaphor of violence. Says one (male) visitor: it contains every single thing this exhibition is about.

It seems women must find a solution to empower their wings to fly. Ultimately, says Astari Rasjid, everything lies in the hands of the woman herself. In the 'Shackled Cinderella', therefore,  a key is therefore held as a bracelet around the pulse. Yet some assistance might be in place and perhaps Dewi Sri, the Rice Goddess will come to the rescue of woman kind. ‘The Healer', (mixed media, oil on canvas, 104.5 x 81 cm) depicts the winged Rice Goddess Dewi Sri in a red strapless dress almost swinging on the earth ball, holding the fruits of the earth in the left and the healing sceptre in the right hand.

Astari emphasizes women must liberate themselves, for the key to the realms of freedom is in one's own mind. Therefore one must disentangle oneself from the virtual burdens implanted on one's psyche from the very beginning of childhood. The process of always doing things just to please other people, first and foremost, one's parents, often develop into a haunting neurosis hampering the formation of strong personality.

While making the 'Wings and Excursions' series has been an eye-opener for the artist, it has also been a healing process embracing recovery from a childhood neurosis that has continued into adult life.

 Making one's own choices and decisions does not necessarily include becoming more masculine, rather it is about becoming what one chooses to be. Enjoying the bliss of being a happy mother by choice, such as  in ‘The Mother (mixed media, oil on canvas, 93 x 83 cm), a painting emanating a bliss likening similar to the Madonna's, does not exclude a woman from being a leader, as expressed in the painting ‘Riding the Bull' (94.5 x 75.5 cm), a transparent reference to Megawati Soekarnoputri as head of the Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

We may look forward to what this prolific painter will have in store for her next exhibition. To view that, will however take some time. 'I will take a break', she says. Having participated in about 10 exhibitions during the year 2000, including in New York, London, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Holland and several at the Ganesha Gallery in Bali, Astari admits she needs some time to herself for she will prepare a grand exhibition inin 2002 in Jakarta.

'Wings and Excursions' will be on show at the Ganesha Gallery at Hotel The Four Seasons, Jimbaran Bali, until January 12, 2001. This exhibition coincides with the 5th anniversary of the Gallery which under the prominent curatorship of Ambar B. Arini in cooperation with Bruce Carpenter and the hotel's management,  has presented about 60 of Indonesia's best artists.

The Mother