Bali Echo Magazine Edition 52 | Biography of the female body

"You do not fulfill our education requirement. Without a high school diploma, we cannot exhibit your work! " This was the answer given to Murni when she applied for an exhibition of her ainting at one of Ubud's best galleries. The second gallery was more frank: "Your work doesn't fall into a category that our "ladies" customers would appreciate. " Since those refusals, however, Murni has held several exhibitions abroad, and for her last show in jakarta and Bali (Gallery Nadi and
Lingkar Becik), she had no less than 15 serious press reviews! A record.

She has become a young star of Indonesian painting. To tell. the truth, Murni's paintings are sometimes surprising. Some of the objects she presents in her work are rarely named, and more rarely shown: penis, vagina, lower lips; and as for the scenes she depicts, they make one's hair raise: there is not only the "regular" position of love making, but also "standing love", male and female fellatio, self-fellatio, penetration by alien objects better, rubbing by objects that are not alien anymore-, masturbation, sucking, kissing and hugging of all sorts and manners, and, more. Considering this inventory, does Murni, Bali's young painter star from the village of Pengosekan, Ubud, warrant the name of female pornographer and sophisticated pervert, and should her work be thrown away into the garbage of art? Some would think so, and Murni has indeed incurred the wrath of the ladies of the duty tours for sin of bad taste and low morality: her work must not be shown to child it threatens husbands and the population atlarge, it is "trash". This "trash", however, is of an uncommon kind.

The vagina may be an eye gaping with complicity or an innocent flower; the male's object of cocky pride may be a hen's beak or an unimpressive hose, when it does not stick out "just like that" like a fast growing tubercule with leaves and the rest. The breasts may be amorphous creatures of their own, hanging deflated and unrecognizable as if it were not for a lonely nipple

	. As for the love making, when held suchbetween "regular" human beings it is featured in such a spontaneous, happy way that it becomes innocent. Otherwise, it takes place in its so many variations and strange circum stances that only educated "bastards" will see ill to, it: a mouth kissing an elongated leaf or limb, a vaguely silhouetted torso from which springs a candid tubercule on the look for a nearby flower, a shoe, a saw or other rubbing and piercing objects whimsically at work between a woman's legs, or else three drops of semen casually falling from the same, and much more... Images of bodies on. the loose. These bodies make interesting "trash". Murni makes sometimes naive-looking but otherwise realistic depictions of the body "at work". Usually, however, she represents limbs, head, genitals, feet etc that are either disjointed from one another, recomposed in a fantasy way
-head and foot, genitals and face, etc- or that spread wildly in all directions. To add oddness to strangeness, this bodily world seems vegetal rather than of the flesh. It's a parts may stretch in opposite directions one teat to the right, the other to the left, or elongating out of proportion in funny torso trunks and hand branches when they don't turn into stumps. Last but not least, they may also bloom. An encompassing, "spreading" world full of the idea of nature and fertility. These "crazy" paintings are accompanied by much glee -too spontaneous not to be serious. The first laugh is with the titles, which combines comments, such as "There are Many Ways to Experience Pleasure" showing a feather in the act, "This Happened on the 07/3/2000" depicts a hermaphrodite with long breasts and an imposing tubercule, and "What a Pleasure" is for a thin tongue trying to kiss a lonely woman's breast. The words are simple and the meanings straightforward, with none of the embarrassed circumvolutions or provocative declarations that usually accompanies sexual imagery in the West. Sex made art with joy and imagination! For a change! When inquired as to why she depicts so much sex in her work and titles, she replies candidly: "Without sex, life is like food without salt". As to the references to masturbation, she is more candid yet: It is the best proof that l love myself". One should have thought of it. All those brothers and sisters who have lost their hearing know the meaning of it! So, is Murni perverse? Quite the contrary. At a close look, her depiction of sex and body follows a very natural logic. It simply exposes Murni's awakening to her body as feminine, sexual and motherly. Her work speaks and describes the whole life-cum-love process. At first the body is just "there", already feminine but without any peculiar demand: the paintings show "My Belly", "My Womb" etc.' Then appears femininity -and the awareness of its opposite, masculinity. It is the time of tools and games of seduction: "he Shoes", My Hat", "Murni Showing off' for Murni, "My Favorite" (a blobby tubercule with a watch and an elongated tubercule branching out), "Eye and Mustache" for herpartner, etc. 1,V at this stage love dreams make their, appearance- the sublimation phase: "Murni Dreaming of him", "Your Eyes are Big but Blind", "Two Feelings" (A dual head). Before long, however, occur the first attempts at physical contact: I don't Dare" (Malu, ah), "Don't Hurry", etc, until all restraint and embarrassment are done with. Sexual intercourse then takes place, in its many hues and shades, variants and symbols -too many titles to be quoted here. There is pleasure ("l Like it"), pain (Trauma"), bewilderment ("We are One" a leg and shoe plant unites to a bird's beak). Eventually after a good nap ("Playing" actually two people in bed) come the longing and pining and a new upsurge of sexual impulse: it is time for a few healthy sessions of masturbation (see above). Finally, the dream of pregnancy