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HANsEN THIAM sUN
Lives and works in Ubud, Bali, indonesia
 www.hansen-art.com
artist contact
 info@hansen-art.com
MY BALI I! 2007 MIxED MEDIA ON CANVAs 70x60 IN. /140x120 CM.
Ahmad Sadali, a famous abstract
painting guru, could be the only
person who tries to contradict the
principles stating that abstract
paintings in Indonesia are absolutely
influenced by West methods. In
early 1980s, in one of his writings, he
issued that abstract expressionism
had been practiced and had been
resided within Indonesian culture
for long. Ahmad Sadali’s reasons are
very clear that Indonesia’s abstract
expressionism tendencies were
original which proven by some
motifs or some patterns in its cultural
artifacts all over Indonesia far from
representations. In his article, he
also concluded that the basis of
antropomorpho- naturrealism similar
to the one in the West was never
really identified in different places in
the Eastern world.
Abstract expressionism was
‘founded’ by the people in the West,
but they were not the only party that
successfully pioneered this genre.
However, we have to look at this
matter from proportional perspective
(having learnt from the history of
the conflicts between Lekra and
Cultural Manifesto). At this point, at
least we can understand the context
of Hansen’s abstract painting as
a manifesto hoping to create a
sufficient and – as mentioned before
– a proportional abstract painting
milieu. In the East, an object can not
always be summarized, exchanged or
mutated as an essence of the object
itself thus eliminating its symbolic
traces (index) because there are
times when people in the East still
consider the importance of presenting
objects blatantly (immutable objects)
intended to remind people of the real
forms of these objects.
By Aminudin TH. Siregar, curator