Penari (The Dancers), 1978

Ink on paper
32 x 24 cm
Collection of Galeri Nasional Indonesia


In the painting, the Dancer, I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, depicts the figure of Rangda, the Balinese witch-queen. She has dishevelled hair, wide-open eyes, protruding tongue and sagging breasts. This imagery is adopted from the folk story, Calon Arang. The two women on her left and right sides are her students. According to the legend, Calon Arang was angry with Raja Erlangga who rejected the offering of his daughter to find a husband, leading Calon Arang to utter a mantra which destroyed the crops and spread a plague.

The painting shows Lempad’s typical style of a continuous black line, through the use of an iyip (a sharpened piece of black sugar palm fibre) on paper.

Apparently, the paper that he used for his drawings were obtained from Walter Spies. Lempad, in contrast to many other artists of Bali, left empty space in his works, to emphasise the lines as well as the uniqueness of each figure which he depicted.

 

About the Artist

Prior to becoming known as an artist, I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, was an undagi (a traditional Balinese architect) and temple sculptor. Together with his father, he sought refuge in Ubud afer fleeing Bedulu, the village where he was born. Lempad studied modern painting with Walter Spies, a Dutch painter, during the early 1930s. Most of his works were black and white ink on paper and illustrated everyday life of the society around him. Together with Rudolf Bonnet and Tjokorde Gde Agung Sukawato, Lempad and Spies founded the organisation known as Pita Maha in 1935. Pita Maha remained active up until the 1950s, fostering the development of young Balinese artists and exhibiting their works to an international audience.


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