Kartika Affandi-Koberl (born November 27, 1934), is an Indonesian artist born into a family of artists.

Biography

Kartika Affandi was born in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

in 1934, the only child of artists

Affandi Affandi (18 May 1907 – 23 May 1990) was an Indonesian artist. Born in Cirebon, West Java, as the son of R. Koesoema, who was a surveyor at a local sugar factory, Affandi finished his upper secondary school in Jakarta. He gave up his studies to ...

and Maryati. Kartika in 1952 married R.M. Saptohoedojo, a painter. She has eight children. Kartika's relationship with her husband was strained by his

polygamy Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married ...

and also his stinginess with the paint they shared, and they divorced in 1972. In 1985, she married Austrian Gerhard Koberl, a yoga and meditation teacher. They separated in 1994 and divorced in 2001.

Artistic career

From the age of seven, Kartika was instructed by

in how to paint with fingers and tubes directly on the

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...

. Any mixing of colours is done on her hands and wrists. Kartika has no permanent studio; like

, 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. Born in 1930s, when men still dominated the art world, Kartika is among a small group of women painters who from the mid-1980s succeeded in exhibiting their work on a regular basis and in gaining limited critical recognition. Even in this context, Kartika's art has been described as unique, ranging 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 a culture where genitals are considered

taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

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. Given their close bond, Kartika painted penetrating portraits of her father, right through to his final years of debilitating illness. 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 Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...

movie. There is nothing here of the glamour, romance or mystical aura that so often characterises images from

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

such as in O.H. Supono's ''Balinese Priest''.

Focus

Following in the populist footsteps of Affandi, Kartika has often painted rural and dispossessed people such as

fishermen A fisher or fisherman is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishers may be professional or recreat ...

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

s, workers and

beggar Begging (also panhandling) is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars may operate in public place ...

s. Since these individuals pose while interacting with her and exchanging life histories as she paints, these must be considered

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...

s. Although narrative, her paintings when viewed close up dissolve into strong, abstract statements in energetically applied

impasto ''Impasto'' is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provide ...

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. Kartika's career experienced a resurgence around 1980, when she studied painting restoration in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

to enable her to repair Affandi's deteriorating paintings. Here, solitude and reflection paved the way for her most unusual portraits.

Travels and exhibitions

Kartika received international critical praise for her work in the 1990s. She visited Australia in 1991 for an exhibition that covered Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. She also visited the United States in the 1990s. Her work was exhibited in the mid-2000s and she reflected upon her career and art. Her paintings were also exhibited in the 2010s.

Documentary

Kartika is the subject of a 2018 documentary film, ''Kartika Affandi: 9 Ways of Seeing'', by Christopher Basile.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Kartika Affandi-Koberl
at AskARt
Kartika: The Life and Art of Kartika Affandi
(video)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Affandi-Koberl, Kartika Living people 1934 births People from Jakarta Indonesian women artists Indonesian women painters 20th-century Indonesian painters 20th-century Indonesian women artists