Lot 3: JUMALDI ALFI (b. Indonesia 1973)

Postcard #003 The Notes
signed 'ALFI (lower left) and inscribed 'Postcard from my past/Series/Postcard #003/the notes' (lower centre) and dated XI/2005' (lower right); signed, dated and titled again (on the reverse)
acrylic and charcoal on canvas
57 x 70 7/8 in. (145 x 180 cm.)

Exhibition catalogue, ALFI, Singapore, iPreciation, 2006, P. 47.

Alfi intends his work to be narrative. Unlike some of his peers, he is not adverse to the notion of explaining the work. Calling it the Postcard from the Past series, Alfi explained that "The early idea for this series sprouted from my longing to return to the past. This seems absurd, but there are things I really wish I could repeat, such as being a little child again, spontaneous - pure and uncomplicated.

I imagine getting postcards or letters from my past with stories of forgotten things, of some grumbling or murmuring, and featuring some Buddha icons. Buddha I admire for his peacefulness and compassion. I find it hard to have a heart as pure as his.

Some of the works look like blackboards, indeed, I do imagine them as blackboards and I write on them all that I have in mind, without restraint or censorship. Some have meanings, some don't. When you see an object in the form of a plaited rattan fish trap, it is about a story or symbol of shackles. I want to be 'trapped' by my past." (Alfi, "Silent Letter of the Night Summer" in exhibition catalogue, Alfi, iPreciation, Singapore, 2006, p. 3 -4).

With this explicit guide, one could appreciate the work of Alfi readily, but not conclusively as the information or rather the signs and symbols are simply overwhelming with each of these works. Scribble is all over and naturally alluring to a viewer with its offers of anecdotes much like an appealing effect of a secret note book or letters chanced upon by an individual. One approaches to read, but the discernible texts are abridged or interrupted at various stages, eventually, one gets a sense that much is said but even much more is left unsaid.

For Suwarno Wisetrotomo, the works of Alfi can be seen as a pilgrimage and as a struggle to trace his Minang culture which defines the cultural identity of the artist. "To go on a pilgrimage towards one's own soul is no small effort. While it demands profound concentration, it is confronted with severe loneliness. A pilgrimage implies the desire to survey and observe, to correct but above all it implies hope. Alfi's works are a manifestation of such pilgrimage of the self, a pilgrimage of the soul which is drifting on the waves of life's complexity. It is a solitary effort, but it gives strength and offers enlightenment. Alfi's works gives information on how to improve and manage sensitivity and how to interpret metaphors and signs which are personal and often hard to denote.

In short, Alfi's works are a sublimation of profound loneliness, of silent beauty and enlightenment." (Suwarno Wisetrotomo, "Pilgrimage of the Soul, Narrative of Silence" in exhibition catalogue, Alfi, iPreciation, Singapore, 2006, p. 15).

It is precisely, the spoken and the unspoken, the past and the present, the sublime and the mundane, the material and the soulful, that renders this work at once readable and unreadable.