pengider bhuana

24 July - 31 July 2002

Crailsheim, Germany

When Karja began this series, he was in America with little income – like all artists at some stage of their careers. He was also suffering from culture shock and missing Bali. He found it impossible to paint about Bali, and it was too far away, and though he wanted to make paintings about America he was not yet familiar with the culture. At this point he was in transition, caught between two cultures.

This reality ultimately led Karja down a new path. Unable to conjure up images of Bali or America, he began to paint by going deep inside himself and listening to his intuition. His paintings shifted from views of rice paddies in Bali to the abstract. He began to use lines, shapes and colours to give visual form to the concept of Pengider Bhuana. Combining the Pengider Bhuana colours with his knowledge of modern painting techniques, Karja has found a way to express and universalise Balinese thought and culture.

Karja is an explorer, always contemplating life from multiple perspectives. His work is influenced by traditional Balinese styles as well as modern Western styles. Karja uses this combination to form a bridge between cultures. All over the world, life is changing; people everywhere are becoming more concerned with the material world than with the spiritual world. For Karja, colour is an important means of creating the connection between the spiritual and material world. Through his work, he uses those colours to create a sense of balance between the visible and the invisible.

The meaning of Pengider Bhuana, as the concept of balance between the physical and the spiritual, has become a typical theme in Karja’s painting.

Pengider Bhuana symbolizes an arena with eight different directions, each axis has a different colour, god, attribute, number, weapon, and Chakra symbol in the human body. Karja’s ultimate goal is to create a visual form that describes the harmony between these inner and outer energies of life.