Nunung W.S

Her earlier paintings emphasized a combination of expressive brushstrokes and mostly dark hues as well as occasional experimentations with different media, such as the addition of paper to her composition. Later the expressive brush strokes began to give way to a new visual language that employed rectangles. Inspired by traditional sarong patterns, the shapes were a study in the effect of colors on a surface. Colors became her main vehicle of expression, filling rectangles with their hazy, indistinct and soft contours, devoid of any form, with only a single line indicating where the artist finds herself in the large space of color. Large rectangles and their contrasting hues became suggestive of spirituality.  Her colors are the result of layer after different layer of color, almost an act of contemplation. “Through color I bring myself into the transcendental,” she once said.

Some have found her works reminiscent of Rothko, but a closer look would reveal the difference. A fine line along the sides of Nunung’s paintings would show the basic layers of color, hinting at batik work she was familiar with through her grandmother, a batik maker. At the same time, the subtlety of the edges where adjacent colors touch gives the appearance of radiating light.

In the further process of her exploration Nunung immersed herself even more into non-matter as she approached the age of 50. Lines increased in her color fields suggesting doors she still had to pass through while her color palette changed to a spectrum of colors that referenced traditional fabrics of Madura, Aceh and Kalimantan. The line that used to indicate her positioning in the space of the canvas is either broken or has disappeared altogether, in one painting even soaring toward a red peak at the top of the work, a metaphor for the most holy mountain. A series of Gunungan was the fruit of her intense immersion in the wayang shadow plays.

At some point in her life, the spiritual gave way to reality. Nunung, who had insisted that her art had to come before anything else, and had made that as a condition when Sulebar, now her husband, proposed, realized she had to give more attention to her husband and only son. One Flower in 2000 showed a hesitant line emerging from a spontaneous movement of the hand and denoted her only son. Red Flower in 2004 featured three semi abstract shapes denoting her increased attention to her family.

At another time, inspiration and creativity appeared to dry up and Nunung went to contemplate at the Borobudur Temple, letting that special spirit work into her being. Her canvases became larger with more impressive dimensions and appeared as triptychs, inspired by the horizontal and vertical movement of the Buddha statue. A minimalist work focusing on the primary colors of black, red, blue and white, appears like a graphic piece of rectangles.

Consistently working with colors as her major vehicle of expression in large rectangles of color planes, at a later stage her canvases showed multiple squares in various color combinations arranged within the rectangle. She also began to add collages in 2011, adding a subtle but refined sense to the divine.  Her paintings are usually entirely colored, and even the title is indicated in the color it entails, such as Biru di Atas Coklat (2015). Sometimes, like in Gerbang Putih, a vague line indicating a gate emphasizes the state of her journey that may need to go through various more gates to arrive at the place she is heading.

 Nunung’s last solo exhibition was in 2002, but she has continued to participate in group exhibitions. In her recent selling exhibition at Ciptadana Jakarta, she explained how in the painting Keindahan Kaligrafi of 2014 not a single word or hijaiyah letter appears, because she does not think of calligraphy as Arabic words, but as a feeling towards its shape and rhythm. Indeed, early on she had already explained that what she sees or experiences is relayed in colors that take her to imaginations of the beyond. Her recent works see an intensified inspiration of the spirit of calligraphy, the geometric shapes of adat (traditional) houses, and the weavings worn by women, while collages, both on paper and canvas, are meant to be an intensified accent on the subtle sense of the divine (among others a 5 panel painting titled An Nisa).

CB 24Feb 2022