Wayang Performance, 2001, oil on canvas, 133 x 103 cm.
Bajaj Lovers, 2000, oil on canvas, 99 x 69 cm.
Naturalist Jamu Seller on Bicycle (jamu is traditional herbal medicine in English), 2000, oil on canvas, 99 x 69 cm.
Cubist Jamu Seller, 2000, oil on canvas, 99 x 69 cm.Toto Duko was born in Bojonegoro, East Java, in 1966. He graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the Diponegoro University in Semarang. After winning the second prize in a poster competition in Jakarta, he enthusiastically changed his career path to become a painter and sculptor. Toto Duko is a successful autodidact who has participated in numerous exhibitions in Indonesia. He resides in Jakarta.
Toto Duko mainly focuses on Indonesian themes. The orange-colored bajaj is a primitive three-wheel, motorized taxicab that is quite familiar to anybody who has ever visited South or Southeast Asia. Since the fares are considerably cheaper than for more luxurious air-conditioned taxis, bajajs are preferred by Indonesians with lower incomes. The tight space in the tiny vehicle provides a safe haven for the young lovers. The artist offers us a glimpse into the loving and tender relationship between the two cab riders. Thedriver appears quite oblivious. The warm orange-red tones emphasize the warmth and intimacy of the relationship.
As much an integral part of Indonesia as the bajaj, are the jamu sellers. Traditionally, jamu sellers have been walking through the streets in villages and cities offering their wares of bottledextracts of medicinal herbs (jamu). They either carry their merchandise in a basket on their backs or push a two-wheel cart.Even in this modern day and age, jamu sellers are still a crucial part of Indonesian life. The vendors of traditional jamu make modern medical doctors dispensable. They have jamu for seemingly every conceivable malady: to give strength to babies, to reverse the inflammation of an appendix, thus making an operation unnecessary, to heal infections, to work as anti-depressants, to treat colds and influenzas, to reverse the aging process, etc. Toto Duko proves hiscreativity in composing the same theme in two different styles, naturalism or representational art versus cubism or abstract art. Both works reflect the intimacyof the scene depicted. Both works also show the artist's preference for traditional Indonesian coloring using warm brown, red and yellow tones.
The Wayang performance confronts the viewer with a highly complex composition that evokes a feeling of intimacy due to Toto Duko’s limited palette of warm earthy hues. For an uninitiated Western audience, the scene appears confusing, but Indonesians would instantly recognize it as the equivalent of backstage at a performance (like paintings of Western ballerinas offstage by Edgar Degas). The Javanese word wayang literally means "shadow" or "ghost." Wayang refers to theatrical performances of either living actors, three-dimensional puppets or shadow puppets held before a back-lit screen. It has been traced back to before the 9th century B.C. It is assumed that pre-Hindu wayang puppets probably portrayed deceased ancestors. The early performances are interpreted as communications between the dead ancestors and their descendants. They presumably served to please the gods, to appease various ghost or evil spirits, or to increase fertility. The dalang (transl. puppeteer) who creates the moving silhouettes of the puppets might have been understood as the first shamanistic priest. With thearrival of Hinduism from India in the first century A.D., wayang turned into a propagandistic vehicle to popularize the new religion. The Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were incorporated into Indonesian stories. With the advent of Islam in the 13th century, Indonesians simply turned the puppets into Islamic literary figures. Javanese royalty used the performances to glorify the feudalistic system and to keep everyone in his place. The Moslem religion bans the reproduction of human forms, thus the puppets turned more and more into ugly, grotesque and stylized forms that look more like symbols than actual human figures.
Toto Duko captures with his painting the atmosphere during an actual wayang performance with shadow puppets. These performances last many hours, often throughout the night until dawn. The Indonesian audience is seated in front and behind the screen. The crowd could be from 20 to 1,000 people. They are familiar with the stories and the characters. In between listening and reacting to the puppets’ performances, they eat, drink, smoke, walk around, talk with relatives and friends, sleep, laugh hysterically, yet, they never lose the thread of the story. The mythology of wayang is 3,000 years old, yet it is alive and dynamic today. The gods, spirits, princes and peasants of the stories become alive. The Indonesians of today seem to communicate with the puppets the same way their ancestors used to. Toto Duko presents the viewer with a glimpse into the inspired and energetic activities of the audience as well as of the dalang during a wayang performance. The artist chose a Cubist approach to represent the scene. Analytical Cubism fragments and mingles forms of an object, and thus, enables the viewer to see all sides of it without changing his viewpoint. This style enables Toto Duko to depict a three-dimensional performance art very convincingly on a two-dimensional canvas. Even the choice of the yellow/brown/orange color group could be linked to the Cubist art works by Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Cubism has been interpreted Aas an expression of life’s fragmentation in the modern world.@ The confrontation between the modern and the traditional world is clearly an important issue in Indonesia today. Toto Duko excels in depicting the mystic traditions of his homeland, and thus, preserving it in today’s modern world.
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