Lot 72: RUDI MANTOFANI

RUDI MANTOFANI B. 1973 BAYANGAN TERANG (BRIGHT SHADOW) SIGNED AND DATED 2005-2010 LOWER RIGHT; SIGNED, TITLED BAYANGAN TERANG AND DATED INDONESIA 2005-2010 ON THE REVERSE ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 180 by 180 cm.; 70 3/4 by 70 3/4 in.

A lone tree occupies the centre of a dreamlike landscape. It's surrounded by a vast, endless, bare plain. Mountains and fields are visible in the horizon, but they are at the far distance, blurry, as if they are in a different world. Nothing seems to be important but the vista's sole occupant: the tree, with its verdant green foliage and thick and solid trunk, and its shadow. The renderings appear realistic yet the composition defies logic. Instead of a dark outline, the shadow here is white and bright; its delicate silhouette is scalloped like the wispy edges of lace. Like the enchanted landscape of a fairy tale, what seems unreal has materialised.

The simplicity of the composition strengthens the narrative. Rudi's tree bears a striking resemblance to the Banyan tree, which some myths and folklores believe to be a wish-fulfilling tree or even the tree of enlightenment. As the only sign of life in a barren land, flourishing when nothing else seems to survive, the imagery suggests that it might indeed be a magical tree; an impossibility that has become possible. Dazzlingly white against the dark earth, the shadow is another anomaly. Both visually and conceptually, its brightness and the reversal of its nature command attention. By definition, a shadow is the reflected image of an object when it intercepts light. By nature, its form and characteristics are limited by the object itself. Its dramatic transformation - light instead of darkness - represents a change that goes beyond the boundaries of all knowledge.

Bright Shadow is a metaphor for a world where darkness becomes light, where negative becomes positive, where bad becomes good. Rudi dares viewers to imagine a world that is not limited by preconceived notions of what we know. "The mind is more powerful than any knowledge known to mankind. A shadow is only dark because we think it is, but it needs not remain so. If we choose to, it can be depicted as bright. The same parable applies to how we approach the problems in our lives. In the journey of life, we will inevitably encounter adversity, disappointment and broken dreams. Only by pushing ourselves outside our own boundaries can we truly find new methods to solve them and to finally grow." (RUDI MANTOFANI, Artist's Statement, 2010). Like fables that reveal pearls of wisdom, Rudi's visual narrative ends with a message: to look at the bright side of life is to nurture hope, and to hope is to live anew.