Umi Dachlan was a proponent of the Bandung School of painting. Known for her abstract canvases featuring impasto fields of maroon and gold paint, Dachlan is increasingly recognised as a significant figure among post-war Indonesian abstract artists. Her work reflects tenets of Islamic philosophy as expressed through her spiritual relationship with nature and music.
Read MoreUmi Dachlan trained at the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB) under the supervision of Ahmad Sadali, a central figure in the advancement of modern Islamic art in Indonesia. Dachlan was only the third female artist to graduate from ITB in 1968 and its first female lecturer appointed in 1969, during Indonesia's turbulent post-independence period. At this time, Indonesian art was divided between two schools of thought: the Western-inflected teachings situated in the former Dutch colony base of Bandung, and the fierce nationalism propounded in the former capital and Javanese city of Yogyakarta. Although the Bandung group, comprised of Sadali and his students at ITB, were derided by critics as 'Western laboratory advocates', this antagonism subsided as the country united under a renewed sense of nationalism, allowing emerging artists such as Dachlan to enrich their own unique identities.
Between 1969 to 1999, Umi Dachlan's style matured to encompass thickly layered earth tones and intricate surface scratching. The emergence of a signature style placed her firmly within the canon of Indonesian abstraction, previously dominated by male figures such as Mochtar Apin and A.D. Prious. Her works diverged from her male colleagues in her use of warm natural colours that built upon the canvas, creating highly textured surfaces that resemble stone and baked earth. She also added mixed-media elements, as seen in Abstraksi (1993), where ancient copper coins are embedded in a thinly scored geometric field of browns, greens and blues. Contemplation (1998) also features coins fixed to a diffuse ground of terracotta and purple pigments, in addition to exposed gold seams. In doing so, Dachlan sought to connect the divine with the immediate and the sensorial.
Like her mentor, Umi Dachlan's works reflect her Islamic faith, linking an experience of nature with the divine by organising the tactile within grid-like structures. The resulting works strive to convey a sense of timelessness and spirituality through naturalistic forms, whilst embodying the contemplative experience of religious devotion.
Amy Weng | Ocula | 2021
