阿凡迪

直接購自藝術家
Alex Papadimitriou 收藏

The work is in good condition overall, as is the canvas which is clear and sound. There is evidence of light wear and handling around the edges of the painting due to the basic framing process. Upon close observation, networks of faint craquelures are visible predominantly on the black impastos, along with three pin-sized holes on the margin. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no sign of restoration. Framed.
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“Affandi needed three things to make his paintings succeed. First, mastery of technique. Second, the presence of powerful emotion which stimulates him to paint. Third, the presence of strong intuition, which helps determine whether his choice of object was right. Although emotion can be on fire when stimulated by a particular object, the success of the painting can still not be guaranteed. Intuition is necessary to ensure that the connection between an emotion and an object is appropriate, only then can the object be painted successfully if it is suitable to Affandi’s language”.¹

Affandi is highly regarded as a pivotal figure within Indonesia’s modern art movement. A self-taught painter, he is celebrated for his unique style of aesthetics which produced works that vibrated with their own special energy. He saw himself as the Indonesian Van Gogh, and this comparison is evident in the artist’s thick impastos that are a deliberate layering of paint upon the canvas to instil a sense of depth in the overall compositions. Affandi is also known to have used his hands instead of a brush to paint, for he believed that this act garnered a personal intimacy with the artworks, and thereby established a greater connection with his audience.

A painter with revolutionary aspirations, the artist's oeuvre was largely dedicated to his homeland. Affandi viewed the oil medium as a means to communicate his values to a wider public, and embraced the canvas as a pseudo stage in which he could actively play out his emotions. Critics may have defined him as an expressionist painter, however the artist interestingly viewed the works to be grounded in realism, for he depicted his personal reality in the narratives. Therefore it may be implied that the artist’s oeuvre was a visual documentation of his external environment, rather than simply as an introspective analysis within a two-dimensional framework.

Throughout his lifetime, Affandi travelled extensively and documented these experiences within his paintings. The fifties and sixties was a period marked by his sojourns, with the artist’s oeuvre reflective of this time abroad. The present work Mexico is an exciting piece from the artist’s oeuvre, for while it is reflective of Affandi’s choice aesthetics and painterly style, it is a revealing look into how his creative paradigms continued to exert themselves even when taken out of an Indonesian-inspired context.

Within the landscape a church is visible in the distance, while occupying the main frame is a group of people who are depicted with the artist’s classic style of animated colours and expressive paint strokes. Affandi was drawn to places that mirrored his artistic aesthetics, and Mexico with its local flavour and rich diversity was the perfect destination to capture in his paintings. It may be said that it was the trips to South America that produced some of his liveliest city depictions. Yet due to the language barrier and difficulty with local transportation at that time, there are noticeably fewer works from these travels than the ones created in Asia and Europe.

Within the painting Mexico, the artist is able to capture the energy and soul of the country, no matter if his own culture is very far apart from the one that is expressed in the painting. The artist once said in a 1953 interview with TIme Magazine, "If I'd never left Java,...I would never have seen where I stand as a painter"^2.

Affandi has deliberately shied away from using motifs that may be recognizable to the audience. This is demonstrative of the artist’s sensitivity towards another country’s local traditions and ideologies. In the self-titled work the artist has captured perfectly the life force that pulsates through the Mexican city’s very core.

 ¹ Sardjana Sumichan, Affandi: Volume III, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2007, pg. 22 

 ² Refer to 1, pg. 189