Biodata - Cynthia Webb
I have been drawing since I was a small child, and portraits have always been my fascination. I was born in New Zealand, but went to live in Queensland, Australia, at the age of twenty-one. I am grateful that I was blessed with “the awakened eye” and the natural ability to draw and later paint the people and things around me.
I never get tired of looking at the miracle of the human face. The challenge of mastering the difficult art of portraiture continues, although I have been practising for most of my life. There is a certain mystery with it, because even if one succeeds in drawing the physical likeness, the real magic is in capturing the subject’s expression and with it their spiritual essence. How to make it “live”? How to reach deep inside the mystery of every human being’s uniqueness? Sometimes I seem to have succeeded, and yet I do not always know how I did it! Which shadow, or line, or tiny highlight made the portrait live? Although technical skills create the basic portrait, if it is to be a success, there is something more mysterious that must come into play. It is a feeling, a connection with the soul of the model.
For about nine years, I have been visiting Indonesia every year for increasingly extended periods of time. Yogyakarta has become my “other home”. I have been living there for about half of each year, always cherishing my friends and the artistic activity of the city. I have come to know, understand a little, and love Indonesia, and this has been possible through my connection with the people, sharing the similarities and differences of our two cultures.
I am a cultural net worker for the Australia Indonesia Arts Alliance, which was founded in 1998. It is an organization for fostering friendship and understanding via the Arts and I have introduced quite a few Indonesian artists into this group. Art is a universal language, like music. (www.aiaa.org.au), and barriers dissolve between people who communicate via the Arts. I am also a contributor to The Jakarta Post, and other publications, supplying articles about arts and culture and about the lives and work of Indonesian artists.
In Indonesia I have found so many willing and wonderful models to assist me with my own portraiture work. The Indonesian people seem to be so at home in their bodies, and are willing to be ‘looked at’ closely and long, even scrutinized by an artist, in a way that most Westerners cannot endure. Indonesians also seem to have a special ability to be “still”, which is a very necessary talent if one is being drawn or painted. There are many wonderful faces, fascinating characters, beautiful people, so it’s a portrait artist’s paradise.
Almost all of my past work has been sold into private collections, because
I have been commissioned to paint or draw many portraits over the years. Some
of it consisted of works depicting subjects other than people, however portraiture
is my main interest. Other subjects seem to be so much easier and do not hold
my interest in the same way. Although I am largely self-taught, I have often
attended courses and studied independently for most of my life. In recent years
I became a teacher of art for students who were adult beginners.
For me, drawing is a way of deeply “seeing” and understanding. It
is my way of relating to all life – always processing experience through
an artistic sensibility. To see the beauty of the line, the form, the texture
– to sit and be absorbed in drawing is like a form of meditation. It brings
a deeper meaning to the moment. Through the act of drawing, one sees more profoundly.
While drawing Indonesians, I feel that I have understood things, which I would not otherwise have had a chance to know. I have drawn closer to the heart of a nation. A country is its people. I have looked into their eyes and sometimes felt that I glimpsed thousands of years of history - so many stories, so many journeys, so many generations, the depth of history, religion and culture and tradition.
I am a Western woman from two very young countries, New Zealand and Australia, with histories of only about two centuries of occupation by Europeans. Those Europeans moved into lands far away from their own original homes, with little or no understanding of the indigenous cultures, which they interrupted - the Australian Aboriginals and the New Zealand Maori. So it is a valuable gift, which Indonesia has given to me. Now I have three “homes”. – Cynthia Webb
TO COMMISSION A PORTRAIT -
Please contact Cynthia by email, if you wish to have a portrait done. If you
can supply a high quality photograph it will usually suffice, but of course
it is best to arrange to meet if possible, and the artwork be created from life.
The portrait can be in full colour pastel, or black and white - pencil or conte.
Cynthia will do the work, photograph it, and send scanned image by email so
that you may be sure of satisfaction, before paying in full. On receipt of the
payment, the work will be mailed in a mail-tube, and you may attend to choice
of mounting and framing yourself.
For further information, email to: lorokidul3@yahoo.com