An Exhibition: "Melintasi Jaman" by Soetopo at Bentara Budaya Jogja

“You keep staring,” my dad stated while I was staring at the painting in front of me. He stood next to me and continued on, “…you’ll take a picture. Shall you take a picture of every single painting?”

“Not every single painting. Why don’t you enjoy our time and take a look at those paintings?” I mumbled.

“Oh, I am enjoying this. When will we finish?”

Hahaha… my dad is not the type of people who visits galleries. It’s not his things. However, glad he joined me.

I went to Bentara Budaya to see a solo exhibition entitled “Melintasi Jaman” by Soetopo. The exhibition was from 15 April until 19 April 2015. Soetopo was born in 1931. He used to study at ASRI Yogyakarta—school of art. His works of art are realistic and he depicts social life of Javanese society.


The above painting is "Bakul Sayur" (2015). Bakul is a Javanese word for "seller" and sayur means "vegetables". Bakul sayur is those who sell vegetables. You can find bakul sayur in traditional markets here, in Jogja. Some of them even still wear kebaya, as seen in "Bakul Sayur". 


The title of the painting above is "Momong" (2014). Momong is a Javanese word for "babysit".


"Bakul Pakaian" (2014) shows us sellers offer either cloths or clothes in the market. This painting, together with two other paintings remind me of my childhood and my grand mother. 


I forgot to check the title of the painting but you can see me standing next to the painting! My dad took this picture for me. Isn't he nice? Hehehe... This is the only one successfully taken. The rest are worse!

So, apart from painting on canvas, Soetopo is a sculptor as well. Below here are his self portraits made in the year 1961 and 1964.



The last of his work I documented is a sculpture of a woman. The sculpture was made from bronze in the year 1961. 


This is the end of this post. If you are in Jogja and would like to know where Bentara Budaya is, you can just go to Jalan Suroto No. 2, Kotabaru. I also visited another exhibition in this place couple of weeks ago, you can talk a look at it here.


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