Page 9 - Made Mahendra Mangku

I Made Mahendra Mangku is one of the generation of the studio where he works in the environment of rice fields. The
Balinese artists of the 1990s who to this day has remained consistent interrelationship of Mahendra Mangku’s works in part shows the
on the path of abstract art. For over twenty years, the exploration composition that leads to this horizon as well as the background of
conducted by Mangku in the creative process places him as a his own experience close to nature. If interpreted psychologically,
Balinese abstract painter with distinctive visual characteristics. A one can read that the work of Mahendra Mangku is stimulated by
gentle, minimalist sweep of strokes in the middle of a monochromatic nature that becomes the memory image which moves the creative
image area, a slightly wild, rhythmic outline of the line, effective process in work. In the world of psychology, a memory image
splashes, occasionally dampened by melts, present a poetic nuance or the impression of memory is an object or experience that is
of silence in each of his works. The label attached to Mahendra reconstructed in the memory with the recognition or awareness that
Mangku is as an abstract poetic painter. the original response or perception actually took place in the past.

The painting process for Mahendra Mangku is a process Listening to the background of Mahendra Mangku’s
of self-dialogue. In it there is a synergy between mind, feeling, and of creative process in presenting his works in the exhibition Memorial
course the ‘hand’ that works as the painting process takes place. In Playing one senses that the abstract art that Mangku presents,
the process of painting, he presents certain ideas in his subsequent besides the various collisions of spontaneous, intuitive, flows in
thoughts in the execution of his work. He lets feeling spill fluidly fluctuation, is also the result of a contemplation of a particular idea—
and intuitively. When this draws “interference” of his thoughts or his in this case the problem of memory. Through his works Mangku also
original idea, he chooses to let his feelings and intuitions dissolve and presents a form of abstraction from reality—his personal memories
drop away, in various possibilities. However, he does not want to be of many things, including of nature. Abstraction is a language
fully dissolved in the process. Control or particular decisions must expressing the ideas of the artist through the most essential aspects
be taken, including deciding when a work is finished and complete. of form. Line, color, field, texture, space, composition and all other
All consciously, the artist plays along with the artistic sensitivity that visual elements comprise a language expressed by the artist of
he has gained from the process and intensity of his struggle for over internal and external reality itself. Mangku’s poetic works invite us to
twenty years in this abstract art. be more intimate and fluid in recognizing and perceiving the essence
of the visual elements in meditative nuances and inviting us to
The problem of memory—the memory that continues to experience the stretch of warm and pure space that arises from his
be threaded in himself about many things in his life—he subjects poetic work.
to the choice of abstract language that has been the choice of the
way of his art so far. The free sweep of his brush in the plane of the
drawing looks spontaneous but poetic. Every line or stroke becomes
a personal expression of the personal idea he is about to convey.
Likewise in the matter of composition and color, all flows and is
affected by the inner condition when the creative process took place.
The series Memorial Playing, comprising the twenty-five
works that appear in this solo exhibition, visually still show the
characteristics of poetry that has been the hallmark of Mahendra
Mangku’s works. In some of his work one finds a composition of
fields and spaces that tend toward or are associated with a horizon.
Is there the emergence of a something leading to this horizon that is
unconsciously influenced by Mahendra Mangku’s personal memory
of nature? In a conversation with this writer, Mahendra Mangku
once said that in his childhood he was very close to nature; he made

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