Western interpretation of the Indonesian Gunungan from Wayang Kulit / Shadowplay

You find many things on this website like series of paintings, collages, paper objects and, for example, a sketch for a monumental Gunungan Shade Statue, next to the prelude to the Gunungan Shades; the censored newspaper works. Most of the works probably never would have been if I hadn’t seen the Gunungan. I invite you to have a look at my western interpretation of the eastern Gunungan.

Few images have made such an impression on me as the shadows emanating from Gunungan, the instrument used in traditional shadow plays that represents the beginning, the middle and the end of Wayang Kulit Shadow Play. The shadows that the Gunungan casts on the silver screen are hallucinatory; it’s a spectacle of hundreds of spots of light and shadow that twinkle like the sun’s reflections on water.

Gunungan (literally; like a tree of life) occurs in Indonesia in addition to shadow play in batik patterns, in
architecture and ideas. Gunungan symbolizes the mountains, the sky, the water. Craftsmen cut hair from dried buffalo and paint the cut-outs with patterns. During two trips, researching the role of shadow in Wayang in Indonesia in 2008 and 2009) I became impressed by the traditions of its use, the aesthetics of the image but also the craft with which the Gunungan is made.

You want to see some samples of the shadow book? see here