Kartika Affandi-Koberl (born November 27, 1934), is an Indonesian artist born into a family of artists.
Early life
Kartika Affandi-Koberl was born in Jakarta in 1934. She is the daughter of Affandi and Maryati, who were both artists. Kartika became engaged to a young Javanese artist, Saptohudoyo, at the age of fourteen and when she was seventeen they were married. She bore Sapto eight children.
Artistic career
Kartika never received formal art instruction. From the age of seven, she was instructed by Affandi in how to paint with fingers and tubes directly on the canvas. Any mixing of colours is done on her hands and wrists. Kartika has no permanent studio; like Affandi,
she prefers to paint outside in the village environment where she
interacts directly with her subjects and on-lookers. This contrasts with
most contemporary Indonesian painters, who work in their studios from
mind-images, memory, photographs or sketches.
In a modern art world born in 1930s, in which men were still the
predominant actors, Kartika is one of a small group of women who from
the mid-1980s have succeeded in exhibiting their work on a regular basis
and in gaining limited critical recognition. Even in this context,
Kartika's art emerges as unique, ranging as it does from conventional to
subversive.
In a culture where the individual self rarely is put to the fore,
Kartika had made the self-portrait one of her main themes. In a society
where emotion is suppressed, both publicly and privately, Kartika fills
her canvases with intense feeling. In culture where genitals are
considered taboo
in representation, Kartika has painted her own nudity graphically and
without the prescribed, distancing sweetness, never depicting the body
as an object of pleasure, whether that of others or her own.
Not surprisingly given their close bond, Kartika has painted numerous
penetrating portraits of her father, right through the last years of
debilitating illness at the end of his life. Another provocative
portrait, Hindu Priest, shows an old man, close up, as he walks
on a beach. His face is preoccupied, intense - a face that might have
been taken from an Ingmar Bergman movie. There is nothing here of the glamour, romance or mystical aura that so often characterises images from Bali such as in O.H. Supono's Balinese Priest.
Focus
Following in the populist footsteps of Affandi, Kartika also has a
long history of painting rural and dispossessed people such as fishermen, farmers, workers and beggars. Since these individuals pose while interacting with her and exchanging life histories as she paints, these must be considered portraits. Although narrative, her paintings when viewed close up dissolve into strong, abstract statements in energetically applied impasto
oils. Kartika's work ranges from the sweet and idyllic to an expressive
realism that can be harsh. The latter is evident in her paintings of
beggars, handicapped people and suffering animals and in her
uncompromising depiction of the progress of old age, whether painting a
stranger, her father, or herself.
The second beginning in Kartika's artist career occurred around 1980, when she studied painting restoration in Austria
to enable her to repair Affandi's deteriorating paintings. Here,
solitude and reflection paved the way for her most unique portraits.
References
Bibliography
- Art and Asia Pacific 1 (3): pp62–72. 1994.
- Krantz, Claire Wolf (July 1, 1996). "On their own terms.". Art in America.
- Emmerson, Donald K. (30 June 1998). Indonesia Beyond Suharto. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 284. ISBN 1-56324-889-1.
- Wright, Astri (July 1996). "Undermining the Order of the Javanese Universe: The Self-Portraits of Kartika Affandi-Koberl". In Dinah Dysart and Hannah Fink. Asian Women Artists. Craftsman House (AU). ISBN 976-641-010-0.
