Donal wishes to revive and embody the “tradition” of painting in the history of the development of modern art through the method of painting on the spot. He returns to nature and tries to appreciate and permeate the phenomenon of form, where aspects of light play a vital role in the absorption of objects by the eye and are then transferred to the canvas plane.
The choice of objects painted by Donal on the spot is also an object in the surrounding environment that is familiar in his daily life as a Balinese. Thus, what appears visibly to Donal’s works is the painting of landscapes, trees, or parts of certain plants that are painted close-up, or a collection of natural objects.
Donal views painting as part of the culture of society. He wants to present things that might look simple, natural, and beautiful (in the eyes of ordinary people) in the hope that this will be the entrance for them to be able to respond to even deeper things, that is, the ideas in each of his paintings.
Based on Donal’s view of his creative process as serious and intense, painting on the spot with impasto techniques, we can read this as Donal’s effort to celebrate and give meaning to painting as a way of presenting beauty and peace of mind through the elements of art—especially colors, which all support light. Donal puts painting as mainstream in his creative process. His struggle and his trust in the power of painting is an inseparable part of a human being’s sense of beauty.