East Bay Express 5/10/06
“Moja’s Mode - Oakland artist takes Balinese painting out of the village, into the world.”
Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Bali knows that the tropical Indonesian island, beloved of the gods, is a fountainhead of distinctive traditional arts. The village of Batuan, near Denpasar in southern Bali, is particularly known for its painted wooden panels depicting the more worldly side of life - the histories of Balinese kings, everyday village scenes, the legends of Hindu mythology - a local variation on the intricately busy, completely filled frames that made Balinese painting famous.
I Made Budi is one of the masters of the ink-and-watercolor Batuan style, and his son, I Made Moja, carries on his father’s worldview, with a difference. Moja, who now lives in Oakland, decided to stretch out a bit when he moved to Northern California. He joined the East Bay’s world famous Gamelan Sekar Jaya ensemble as a dancer, began an association as a puppet maker and performer with the San Francisco wayang kulit (shadow puppet) theater troupe ShadowLight Productions, and even designed sets for a Balinese adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Moja has been shown internationally and he has given workshops in Bay Area schools, but now his paintings are getting some serious local exposure at the Desa Arts gallery in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood. Lisa Tana, owner of the newly opened gallery and import boutique (desa means “village”), intends to follow the show with art from Madura and Java as well, in an effort to help spread the word about the fine-arts side of Indonesia’s rural craftspeople. Referring to Moja’s thematic departures from more tourist-oriented folk art, Tana says, “You don’t really get to see this type of painting very much in the U.S. It’s really different from what you see in most Balinese import shops.” For the full Bali high, you need go no further than Moja’s Iguana, in which a very large lizard resting on a tree limb magically blends in with tendrils, birds, and butterflies. Or the lush and languid Three Sisters, with its elongated female beauties bathing in a stream, surrounded by a riot of nature that would put an Art Nouveau painter to shame. Moja’s work is on display through July 6th. For more info, call 510-595-1669.
– Kelly Vance
