PeterRS Posted September 30 Posted September 30 When I was visiting Bali regularly in the early 1980s, I based myself in Ubud, a town where art had flourished for many deacdes. There were artists working in other towns but it was Ubud which inspired a number of western artists to visit and make their homes there in the 1920s and 30s resulting in the development of a more naif form of painting. The main one we know of today is almost certainly the German painter and musician, Walter Spies. After a spell living iin Java, he moved to Bali in 1927 and spent most of the rest of his life there. As his art grew in popularity, he formed a co-operative of young Balinese artists who continued his style after he was forced to leave the country and his ship was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in 1942. Spies was openly gay. In Bali in those days although homosexuality was illegal, it openly flourished in and around Ubud and other parts of the island. It was only towards the end of the 1930s that the Dutch colonial masters decided to more strongly enforce the law and Spies was arrested resulting in his deportation. Using daily Balinese life as their subject, the works of the cooperative formed by Spies were popular for many decades. In Hong Kong I had five Ubud paintings on walls. Here in Bangkok, just one. What I had not realised until today after reading an article in the Guardian about an art exhibition in England is that art in Bali had major developments as the century was coming to an end. This particulr exhibition focuses on paintings by the female artist known as Murni (I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih) who had died of ovarian cancer at the horribly young age of 39 in 2006. Her work retains near absolute simplicity as she paints with an abandon of form. Her later works are amost entirely devoted to sex. Through sex she shrugs off the constaints of Balinese daily life and society. As the article states - "Murni’s later work stands apart though. The paintings are now infinitely more brazen, a total embrace of desire and sexuality. A pig in a bra puts on lipstick. High heels – sexily feminine and absolutely lethal – kick and stomp. Vaginas are worshipped by kneeling figures or penetrated by tentacles; breasts are bound by wristwatches; couples hump and writhe; everywhere you look there are cocks throbbing and piercing and erupting. They pop out of cups, wrap around women’s bodies, nudge at orifices. It’s all desire, totally unbound, totally free." There are none of the norms of Balinese society here. She wanted freedom in her life and as an artist. Her works are now to be found in a number of pretigious galleries in New York, Chicago, Sydney, Singapore and elsewhere. Two of her works - Images: Gajah Gallery & The Estate of I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/sep/29/i-gusti-ayu-kadek-murniasih-review-a-vivid-testament-to-a-life-lived-hornily kokopelli3 1 Quote
