PREVIOUS PAGE:
Purpa Fine Art
Gallery Seminyak
LEFT FROM TOP:
Tirta Gangga,
Karangasem;
Kenyem in his
gallery, Sayan
ABOVE:
Kenyem’s studio
October 2019 115T
he lion’s eyes loom yellow
through lotus leaves, pupils
wildly dilated; ears rigid, alert.
His fur is long and matted, but
it’s the teeth I can’t take my eyes
of: sharp, oversized sabres curl up from the
lower jaw; a monstrous mouth that’s ixing
me with a deranged grin.
“He’s a symbol of good,” says Kenyem, the
artist who painted the Balinese barong — a
mythical king of the spirits, part panther-
lion, part shaggy dog — that stares out of
a vast canvas leaning against Kenyem’s
paint-splattered studio wall. Lotuses, leaves
and vines spiral in concentric meditative
circles from the barong’s mane towards the
painting’s frame, where — at its base — a
river springs to life. The evening air is heavy,
petrichor-pungent from the recent storm,
rainforest aromas creeping in through the
gallery’s carved wooden windows. In the
great tradition of Balinese art, nature and life
are intertwined.
“When painting, I look for signs in nature,”
continues Kenyem. “A falling leaf, a branch
curling. It’s a way of god, nature, telling us
something,” he trails of into a shy smile.
Like the barong before me, the paintings
of I Nyoman Sujana Kenyem (‘Kenyem’) are
fertile canvasses, webbed with abstract
patterns: leaves, lowers and branches oten
in acid hues surreal to a foreigner’s eye,BALIendemic to this tropical corner of the world.
Encircled by these vibrant nests, Kenyem’s
signature tiny human forms, walking,
dancing, jumping — not igures dominant
over nature, but details of it.
“Balinese art goes back far before the
commercial, to the sacred,” says Kenyem.
“When art wasn’t to sell, but for the gods. My
father did this. He was a temple sculptor.”
Born in this small village near Sayan, in the
rainforest-dense district of Ubud, Kenyem
has painted since he was a boy. Adapting
the traditions of temple art into something
unrecognisable, his work is still somehow
devotional, and deeply rooted in place.
“This one’s called Holy Water,” he says
nodding to his barong painting-in-progress.
“The springs are in the village, where water
is taken for ceremonies. Bali’s spirit is very
strong for me. When I exhibit in Jakarta,
it’s so busy, so crowded and I can’t paint.
My heart isn’t free. I need to be quiet. I can
always sense Bali; I have to come home.”
Outside, the sky is bruising purple. Rain is
returning. Accepting a lit, I pick my way over
a carpet of frangipani lowers that have been
ripped from trees in the rising wind, and
hop onto Kenyem’s moped. Juddering over
potholed, cobbled lanes as we wind through
the village, roosters take a noisy sunset
stand on pagoda shrines. These structures
populate courtyard gardens of traditional