Copyright 2001 by Carla Bianpoen 
Appearing on Javafred with kind permission of the author. First published in The Indonesia Tatler, February 2001.

ASTARI RASJID:
Highlighting the Goddess
 within Women

by Carla Bianpoen

Astari Rasjid is known as a welcome guest in the circles of society. As the years passed by, however, she seems to have pursued a path following the calling of her soul. A metamorphosis? Perhaps that would be too strong a word, though there is no denying that she has transcended into a world that lies between the realistic and the surrealistic, rising to an international award-winning level of prominence with art works meriting a place in a class apart.

The merits did not come out of the blue. She had to work hard, have an iron discipline and be some sort of a super woman who had to be able to also be everything to everybody.

As I sat beside her in December, 2000 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Bali the night before the opening of her second solo exhibition at the hotel's Ganesha Gallery, she was still doing the finishing touches until the wee hours of the morning.  We talked about her life, her concerns and her visions, all of which are best described through the paintings and sculptures she made during the past six years, for her personal evolution is closely interwoven with her artistic preoccupation, and the changes in her life style are intertwined with her widening personal scope and her intense endeavours in reconciling and re-interpreting the traditional concepts of women's role, position and status to adjust to the visions of the present.  Central to her artistic achievements stands the discovery of her personal potential, bringing out the goddess that lives in her as it does in every woman.

Coming from an environment where Javanese tradition was strictly adhered to, Astari was brought up in an atmosphere dominated by the philosophy of equilibrium. Harmony should be maintained, if only for the sake of visual balance. One was expected to be civilized, pleasing and smiling, even if one did not feel like it. 'I did things because I was expected to do so, by my parents, my family and society at large'. As was usual in those days, parents refrained from praising their children directly, even if they did well. 'My mom never uttered a word of praise'. And so Astari always had the feeling she had to do better. It is a feeling that was to stay with her throughout her childhood, and into adult life. The feeling has changed into one of modesty and she often says "It's not enough, I must and can do better'.

Her early childhood was spent in India and Burma, where her father was military attaché. This somewhat relaxed some of the stringent Javanese tradition. As a girl, she was drawn to drawing, just like her four sisters. They were the champions of the newspaper of the high school they attended. She soon progressed to drawing portraits, and became the favourite of her friends' sisters, earning a handsome amount of pocket money. 'My parents never pampered us with money, says Astari. They somehow became her role models. From them she learned that one has to work and earn.

Her mother, whose kinship lineage can be traced to the Solo (Central Java) aristocracy was deeply rooted in the Javanese tradition, made sure her children were brought up accordingly. 'I was taught a girl must be pleasing, smile and have good manners, and look appealing, even if she feels miserable', reveals Astari.  Nevertheless, her mother also stood firmly on earthy practicality. 'She was very creative, made all sorts of craft and used to make clothes for her seven children".

A practical woman, Astari's mother disagreed of her wish to enter the university, and so she ended up doing a secretarial course. 'I got a job then, but quit after two months as I discovered it was not what I wanted'.  Astari became a fashion reporter, a field she was familiar with, since her mother liked to sew and she had been brought up in the tradition of caring for the body and how to dress well. She was not just a reporter, but was executive editor for Jurnal Mode Indonesia, a Fashion magazine in the early 1970s. 'I was editor, reporter, lay-out person, as well as everything else". In-between she accepted modelling assignments and made designs for Prayudi. 'I love colours and colour combinations, but the most intriguing part for me was the act of creation'.

She thought she'd surely find a way in fashion. For a lot of people, personal appearance is one of the main concerns, and knowing that, Astari decided to go more deeply into that subject as she nurtured her artistic impulses at the same time.

The world of fashion is usually perceived as one of glamour and glitter, a world of the rich and the wealthy. But Astari reveals it is also a world that requires hard work, and a lot of dedication. The making of designs particularly intrigued her. The act of creation was fascinating, she says, and about 'making' the image of a person. She made clothing that reflected the changes of the time and she managed to bring her designs as far as Japan. She was then barely twenty years old.

When she got married, she gave up her career as a fashion designer, devoting her time and her creative powers to the realms of family and home. This included attending and organizing social functions, socializing with the rich, the prominent and the leisured. During a further stage, she became involved in art education, art promotion, and organizing arts events such as the 1995 Exhibition of Contemporary Art of the non-Aligned Countries. The network she had meanwhile built up was extensive.

Deep inside her, however, there remained a sense that this was not everything. Later she realized she was doing too many things to please others, and too little to fulfil her own personal aspirations.

But she just let things follow their natural stream, like the flowing of a river. She continued drawing as a hobby, then painting taking painting classes in her spare time. Sometimes the courses were short, as for example when she accompanied her husband on a business trip, while at other times she was able to take full courses, attending the University of Minnesota and London's Royal College of Art. She read a lot, which widened her personal scope and led to profound contemplation.


Her artistic urges began to show, albeit haltingly, for by now she had to juggle family life, social obligations, teaching activities at the Jakarta Institute of Fine Arts, involvements in the Jakarta Fine Arts Foundation, organizing functions and exhibitions zillions of other odd jobs, while exploring the canvas.

Her earliest works hinted at an inner impatience, and with having to hide true feelings behind the various masks that women need to put on. Masks began to occur on her canvases.  To a certain extent, masks play a role in her own life as they do in everybody's life representing different tasks before different people. Perhaps they assumed even more prominence as she rushed between family, society , the arts world and her studio. Sometimes it was as if she lived in different worlds at the same time, changing roles and changing masks as required.

Exploring, reading and learning, Astari widened the horizons of her intellectual knowledge, while contemplating the environment in which she lived. She became sharply aware of the patriarchal pattern of her society, and while the phenomenon occurs throughout the globe, she thought her own cultural environment particularly exacerbated it. 
Astari's works have always included some expression of independence of women. Her early works hinted at the underlying fighting spirit of Indonesian women through symbolic masks, a subtle yet provocative image she continues to employ for some time.

She once said she had always been intrigued by Raden Adjeng Kartini, the national heroine whose correspondence with her Dutch pen friends revealed a far-reaching vision for the liberation of the Javanese from the shackles that prevented them from obtaining adequate education and standing as equals before their colonizers, as well as between men and women.

As she was dressed in the traditional Javanese attire to celebrate Kartini Day when she was in school, she often wondered what exactly was behind the figure honoured as 'our mother Kartini'. When she was older, she got hold of the book, and understood how Kartini Day was actually manipulated. Kartini's quest for liberation impressed her deeply.

Taking serious note of the issues haunting women of her tradition, she turned to her roots and started unearthing the secrets clouding women's lives. It was a soul-searching process from which she emerged trembling, but strong in some ways. The Loro Blonyo series that came out of this process are stirring tales of the drama revolving around women's lives. Somber hues, a closed door, dripping red paint from the roof, and a stiff white-faced female figure in traditional attire sitting outside the door, a mask, a wayang puppet, and other elements symbolising tradition were realistic enough for anyone to grasp the meaning.

Since then, Astari has tried to re-interpret and redefine the traditional concepts and perceptions on women's roles, their place and status. In so doing, however, she applied the old wisdom of equilibrium and perceived harmony. As her paintings show, there is subtlety and aesthetic sensitivity in bringing about the changes she was convinced would happen. 'Temple of Efflorescense' presented at the Tenth Biennale at Taman Ismail Marzuki (November, 1996) is a self portrait that shows her as determined, yet avoiding open disharmony. Dressed in a Javanese ceremonial attire is a woman standing against the background of the Borobudur Temple, the giant sanctuary in Central Java. Symbolic of the womb as the most sacred place of the life cycle's beginning the temple also denotes the sanctity of women. In the woman's hand is a lotus flower emphasizing the sense of sacredness. Besides the conventional symbolism, however, the body is untraditionally upright, the arms straight, the gaze firm and straight, while the hands are loose.

In 'Irreversible Passage', displayed at TIM and later at the World Bank's 1995 exhibition at Bank headquarters in Washington, Astari proceeds further. Depicting the shape of a vessel within the contours of a vagina ready to go through the narrow outlet, the painting also presents the image of a powerless woman next to a traveling coat in purple.

The installation created for the (H)earts exhibition at Galeri Teguh (97) is slightly different. Giving the sensation of watching an icon when standing in front of it, viewing it from the side is like peeping in a woman's room. 'Resurrected' Core as it was titled, was about marriage ties and egalitarian relationships. Presenting a bare upper body to symbolize women's essential aspirations, and an added lotus flower to reflect a sense of sacred significance, the installation uses an old antique door in front of the bare body, to indicate that women are still confined to the backroom. To the left and the right of the painting's center is a piece of Javanese wedding cloth, or 'cinde', and a pair of shoe-sandals at the end of each piece.

Brides in Javanese traditional attire and grooms, dressed accordingly, now often fill her canvases. They look beautiful from the outside, complete with pseudo serene facial expressions. Sometimes, like in 'Serene Thought' (98) which follows the style of the classics, chiaroscuro, the classical play of light and shadow, accentuates the sense of silent emotion and restrained anxiety emanating from the beautiful countenance of a Javanese bride while a thinly written Javanese script above the head is about the tradition of make-believe determining a woman's behaviour.

But in other paintings symbolism abounds, like painting the male and female in the same color, or with the same height.

As she proceeds to total womanhood, her observations stretch beyond her own personal circle. Struck by the May 1998 rapes of ethnic Chinese women, the violence sweeping the country, as well as the national turmoil, she first let the impact of the horror sink into the depth of her being. She put together a portrait of women in their various realms of- hidden - struggled weaving her personal story into the larger fabric of the country's political turbulence. Her narratives are at once a chronicle of national turmoil, political manoeuvring and the issue of woman's leadership, as evident in her first solo exhibition in December 1999. Held at the Ganesha Gallery in Bali, they are realistic representations reflecting the episodes of her life experiences, which coincided with the fall of the regime, the ensuing turmoil and the drive for justice and democracy.

Near-surrealistic landscapes and finely integrated news paper clippings mirror the country's harrowing state, and faces resembling her own or her mother's image emerge into fields which may take the appearance of the traditional, such as the Balinese traditional dancer in 'Refining Procedures', but in fact denote actual political events. The traditional Balinese dancer's costume, for instance, carries the images of presidential candidates Megawati Sukarnoputri and Abdurrahman Wahid, but Megawati's image was larger than her contender's. Bearing such engendered significance, the work also radiates a vision of hope symbolized by fertile paddy terraces, so typical of the Balinese environment.

Peaceful vistas of fertile land as a metaphor for a peaceful future occur in many of her works. But not always are her landscapes peaceful.  'Landscape of Time', for instance has a volcano in a state of eruption. Although the figure with hands clasped as in a Balinese greeting suggests tranquil spiritual notions, the half-empty hourglass placed on a computer chip tells of another reality. The hour glass also occurs in the painting of mother and child, entitled 'Delicate Configuration' a painting which testifies to both the importance of the passing as well as the advancement of time. Another interesting work is a Balinesed interpretation of Eugene Delacroix's painting titled 'Liberty Leading the People" (1830) which renders a woman carrying the national flag in the turmoil of the French revolution. 'A New Task for Saraswati', however, presents the Goddess Saraswati holding the Indonesian national flag, a scale of justice, the lotus flower for transformation, and a computerized agenda carrying the words 'Wahid' and 'Mega' for political reform. Letting the goddess stand on a turtle instead of the traditional goose, Astari humours, albeit with a touch of impatience about the slow pace of change, which is open for interpretations both in the realms of women as well as politics.

One year before, 1998, she produced a three-dimensional work, part of the exhibition of 16 woman artists in Rome, an exhibition which noted professor of philosophy Toeti Heraty called a homage to the victims of the May rapes. Astari's 'Prettified Cage', like many of her other works, includes issues that stretch from the traditional to the modern, including politics. Depicting a woman's traditional blouse, the kebaya, and skirt, the sarong, Astari pointedly draws a parallel with the position of women in the Javanese cultural tradition, while at the same time it also refers to the national 'conduct'. The kebaya and sarong, the official national attire for Indonesian women, looks sweet and fashionable, with the fabric appearing smooth and lovely. But that is just the appearance, for both the attire and the underwear are made of stainless steel, symbolic of the harsh impositions on women, and the predominant political repression. The padlock and the chastity belt, similar to the product which was being marketed as a protection for women against rape, is included in the sculpture as a strong protest. Rather than a means of protection, it is a way of punishing women again, while the culprits can freely move around.