One of the principal reasons I went to Bali this year was because there was an exhibition of paintings that the Ehipassiko Foundation had commissioned when I was there last year. As it happened, I got food poisoning on the day of the opening of the exhibition at the Diary Gallery, for which I had prepared a talk, and so I only managed to visit the gallery some days later.
Last year we had traveled to the village of Kamasan in Klungkung and to the studio of I Made Sesangka to ask him to paint a large canvas showing 28 scenes from the Life of the Buddha which would be used in an Indonesian translation of the Buddhacarita by Ven Aśvaghoṣa, and he had completed that task in 6 months on a large canvas 8m x 1.5m in size. The Kamasan style to my eyes anyway is very attractive (see an example below).
Later we also met with Mr Putu Bayu, and it was through him that 20 other artists were commissioned to produce paintings for a book to be entitled Sakyamuni. These paintings were also on display, along with many others by the same artists, on both Buddhist, Hindu and Bali folk themes.
Earlier in the trip we had also visited the Neka Museum in Ubud, which houses a large collection of 20th and 21st century art by Bali artists and craftsmen. I also managed to photograph there and there is now an album featuring those works. There were also some very fine wood carvings on display, some of which I photographed, and they have a large collection of bejewelled krisses (but these I did not get pictures of).
Altogether it is impressive how vibrant the Bali art scene is, and unlike its degenerate counterpart in the west – where most “art” these days seems merely conceptual – skill, training and tradition still help to keep it alive and relevant, sometimes retelling well-known stories, sometimes having themes of everyday life or portraiture.
