Art is a Mirror: Nurkholis reflects

Cynthia Webb
If we observe art history, we can see that one of the important functions of art is to serve as a mirror - reflecting upon, questioning and interpreting current social attitudes, trends, or events. It shows us ourselves in images, which we can recognize. Sometimes those images are confronting, and part of the society does not like what it sees, and reacts in a kind of angry denial. But with the wisdom of hindsight the artist’s eye is often recognized as having shown a true and valuable insight, and these artists may become the famous names in the art history books.

Some artists have found themselves to be ahead of their time - pushing back the barriers and exploring deeply into techniques and meaning, observing the world around them with a fearless eye, and sometimes founding new art movements and making art history in the process. The Impressionists founded a new way of seeing and painting the natural world, departing from the previously rigid academic style. Pointillism demonstrated so much about colour and tonality. Picasso and Braque’s enquiries into form and dimension caused shock and confusion until people realized what they were telling us. Goya painted merciless images of the society which patronised him. Most of Van Gogh’s contemporaries did not understand his wild and passionate artistic expressions and he struggled all of his life.

Being at the cutting edge is not always a comfortable place to be because the artist may come up against strong resistance or even ridicule and condemnation, from the society in which he or she lives. Such is the nature of the arts, and such is the function of the arts. However an artist who has integrity will be undeterred and remain true to his or her inner inspiration in spite of any negative effects on their career.

A Yogyakarta artist, Nurkholis, has been experiencing his own version of this in recent times.

During the last 3 years, Nurkholis has been exploring the psychological/spiritual relationship of human beings with their own bodies. He believes the human body is energy, and tries to express that on canvas. He knows God’s creation is perfect. Therefore he wonders about the widespread dissatisfaction, embarrassment and shame, which people in many parts of the world seem to demonstrate about their physical self. Some want to be fatter, thinner, darker or lighter skinned, some want to be tattooed or pierced, or change the colour of their hair, curl it or straighten it. Many try to improve on it with cosmetics and some resort to the surgeon’s knife.

Nurkholis also observes how people conceal their body under clothing, which often takes the form of various uniforms through which they can assume another identity, such as military or other uniforms, which are often work related. People also use clothing to publicly declare an affinity with a particular peer group, such as a religion, or other socio/political affiliations. When questioned about ourselves, we do not answer, Ï am a human being, but reply by identifying ourselves through our work.
‘I am a teacher, or ‘I am a doctor, or I am an businessman, or I am a becak driver. We thereby try to hide ourself within the identity provided by our occupation, unsure of what else we might be.

In Nurkholis’ eyes, all bodies are beautiful in their own uniqueness. He longs for the time before we became ashamed. In a way it is a call back to the mythical Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve lived naked and unashamed. He fervently wishes people could say, Ï am a human being, with real conviction and acceptance of what this means.

Our body is our only definite reality. Everything else is other. How did we become so repressive about our bodies? asks Nurkholis. He is shocked by the wide exploitation of the body and he also questions conventional standards of beauty - the way magazines, movies and television continually present a particular image as being perfect. A vast profit-making industry has been created around people’s insecurity about their public physical image. Nurkholis says, Whatever you are is your beauty. He thinks about the few places left on earth where tribal people still live naked and free, comfortable in their physical bodies and also in their relationship to their environment.

During his artistic enquiry into this very human issue, Nurkholis developed a way of using the actual physical body as a painting tool, and in the process of using the physical, is showing us the spiritual. The images often look like they might be capturing the astral body itself on the canvases. The physical is metamorphosed to show us the purity and sanctity of humanity to demonstrate that we are a fusion of the physical and the spiritual.

However like other artists before him, Nurkholis has found out that the society around him was not yet ready for his message. He was recently awarded a prize in a leading art competition in Japan. But here in Indonesia there has been criticism of his methods and of his images, saying that using naked bodies is immoral and not appropriate in the modest Indonesian society. There has been talk that this process is exploitation of the female model.

According to Nurkholis, there are those whose imaginations are running wild as they think about the naked body creating the impressions on the canvases, as if this might be some kind of pornographic process. Nothing could be further from the truth. In actual fact, a complex and deeply considered artistic technique is required to achieve the dimensionality in the images. The body printing process is complicated and physically demanding, and therefore requires a clear understanding, and mental discipline from the model and absolute artistic professionalism from Nurkholis himself.

He is rather like a film director who is also acting in his own movie, as his own body is part of the process. He is directing the physical action, which is a series of complex and precise horizontal postures, then standing back from the result and analysing it as it is in process. He is continuously checking the results and making decisions about what to do next in order to achieve his artistic vision, like a film director watching the rushes after the day’s shooting. Like most worthwhile and genuine art, this is hard work.

Nurkholis’ body language art method is expanding the boundaries of art technique in Indonesia. But this is not the only front on which he finds himself fighting. He has also come into conflict with traditional, and religious ideas about appropriate morality in Indonesia. He is not only depicting the human form, but he is using the naked human form to depict itself! In the fundamental Islam observed in some Middle Eastern countries this is forbidden, however in Indonesia the ban has never been strictly observed. But there was negative reaction from people in both the Islamic and Christian communities, from collectors, art dealers, and even from other artists. Nurkholis’ concept is that the body itself is art and for him it is also the tool to create his art. Í have never felt a contradiction between my religion and my art, he says.

From the age of nine to fifteen years, he had a conventional Islamic education at a Madrasah school. During his earlier artistic period he often participated in Islamic art exhibitions, showing Islamic calligraphy, which was often combined with his surrealist style. The theme of his work was decidedly spiritual, the works also containing other Islamic visual symbols. However at a certain point, he observed that his calligraphy paintings were being purchased for impure purposes relating to business and materialism, sold into corruption, so to speak. The conflict of purity and hypocrisy bothered him so much that he ceased doing this work.

The controversy, negative talk and gossip, which arose last year around his new body language art method, caused another interesting aspect to reveal itself. The art market suddenly became afraid. Art collectors and dealers shunned him after having previously been very interested in buying his work. They lost confidence in being able to re-sell the work in the climate of controversy. This brought up interesting matters to think about concerning the relationship of pure art, to the business side of art. Most artists need to sell their work in order to continue to work as artists, live and feed their families. How often does this uncomfortable reality cause artists to compromise their true art spirit and alter their direction to suit these practical commercial considerations?

Nurkholis says that during his three previous art ‘periods’ his work always sold well. However he had become discontent, bored with what he was doing. He wished to go deeper with his mental/spiritual explorations and had to find a new technique to do so. Ironically, the technique came to him out of his frustration. He found himself in a period of introspection, which led him to his present work a contemplation of the human condition. One of his children asked him why he was not painting anymore and this painful question caused him to kick out at a wet canvas nearby. Then he saw the clear impression of his foot and leg and realised that he had found the way to express his thoughts about being human.

When he changed to the ‘body imprinting’ art he needed the support of his artist wife Hety Nurani. They were a little afraid for the future of their family fortunes, as they have three children to think of. Nurkholis knew he must believe totally in himself. He knew art collectors would protest because his previously good selling work would no longer be available. However, Hety is also a graduate of Institut Seni Indonesia in Yogyakarta. She not only supported her husband, she understood completely and assisted him by acting as his model in the early stages of his body language art.

Refusing to compromise in his work in spite of the professional and financial pressures, which have been on him for the last year or so, Nurkholis’ exploration of human relationship with the physical body continues. He is also integrating other techniques into the body imprinting works - collage, and some brush painting in realistic style, and the works frequently contain social commentary.

Nurkholis is one of the artists invited to participate in the Jakarta Biennale Exhibition, 2003, currently at the National Gallery in Jakarta. For this important occasion he has defiantly created his largest work to date - a nine-metre triptych, affirming his determination not to be influenced by anything but his own artistic inspirations.

My art is like a river which is always flowing, always trying to find ways to enter into and pass through obstacles. There will be no compromise because of business thinking or commercial pressures. For me it is totality of art. It will be examined by time, who is the true artist and who is not, says Nurkholis. His work speaks to us about ourselves as Spiritual Beings having a Human Experience.

Cynthia is a cultural networker for the Australia Indonesia Arts Alliance, www.aiaa.org.au and can be reached at: lorokidul3@yahoo.com

Episode by Nurkholis