Indonesians in Focus: Permadi Liosta

By Barrie | July 25th, 2007 | No Comments

The ordeal of being shut out from the world might be too bitter a memory for painter Permadi Liosta to forget.

“No, I have no hard feelings. That was in the past,” he said.

But his awareness of injustice has not left him. “I still can’t understand why I was treated so,” he said, his lips trembling.

“Try to imagine … I was a painter; why should I have been there for 13 years? If I were a political convict, even death row might have been justified.”

“I’m not a political cartoonist who criticized the government. I’m a painter who wanted to portray the lives of people. Do you see any political motive in my paintings?”

No. The art works — at least those on display at Galeri Milenium where he is holding a solo exhibition — speak clearly enough about his sincerity in depicting social life as it is.

He even avoided showing the hardship during his exile at Buru island. As a result, his works portray everyday life, particularly that of local people.

“Buru people go everywhere, carrying two spears. They make a living from hunting,” he said in comment on his Potret orang Buru (Portrait of Buru people), which he worked on this year.

He told the story, seemingly unperturbed by Buru’s notoriety. The island is part of Indonesia’s dark history that is filled with abuse of human rights in the wake of a failed coup attempt blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1965.

Thousands suspected of having links with the party and its organizational wings were reported to have been killed.

More had their lives reduced to isolation in Buru, whose penal system, in which suspects were punished without trial, could be seen as a precursor to U.S.-administered Guantanamo jail today.

Reports cited that 10,000 to 15,000 people were held on the island under the government’s rehabilitation program. The price was high, with many reported as dying following torture.

Pramudya Ananta Toer, a well-known writer and former inmate, was quoted by Herald Tribune (in March 2000) as having recorded 315 deaths: men crushed by falling trees, tortured to death or, in two cases, speared by local people.

“For the first two months, torture was the prisoners’ constant diet,” Pramudya writes in his The Mute’s Soliloquy: A Memoir.

Luckily for Permadi, who said he would meet Pramudya when prisoners gathered at the camp’s mako (an acronym for markas komando or command headquarters), he was beaten only once.

He might have been spared physical torture, but he cannot have escaped the psychological agony, evidence of which can be seen in his paintings even today, almost three decades after his release in 1980.

“You can see a dark nuance in the paintings he produced after Buru,” art critic Vukar Lodak said. Permadi said he did it inadvertently — “It just comes out that way.”

Homesick for Aceh

The Buru nightmare was not the first time Permadi had a brush with danger.

After completing vocational school in his hometown Takengon, Aceh province, where his painting skills began to be recognized by teachers and fellow pupils, Permadi was called out by the fledgling government to the warring front in Pangkalan Brandan, North Sumatra, with the task of disseminating information.

His task, he recollected, was to write pamphlets — imbued with heroic images of men holding sharpened bamboo spears — to be spread to Aceh to counter Dutch propaganda that attempted to fool the Acehnese that their return to Indonesia was purely to disarm beaten Japanese.

“We wrote ‘the Dutch lied, don’t ever trust them’,” said Permadi.
“We sent out couriers to do the job. Many were shot dead when they were discovered.”

When the duty was accomplished, Permadi’s desire to hone his painting skill was unbearable. He wrote a letter to Hendra Gunawan, then a top artist in Indonesia, and joined painting workshop Pelukis Rakyat in Yogyakarta in 1952, where he also benefited from tutorial guidance at the hand of maestro Affandi.

“Permadi was a talented artist. He was the kind of self-taught person but his painting skills matched those with an academic record,” said Ali Basah, one of Permadi’s friends at Pelukis Rakyat.

“He has been consistent in his work. He is one of the few who was able to survive under such tough circumstances,” said Ali, who led the Indonesia Art Academy (now an institute) from 1965 to 1975.

Permadi also worked on statue carving; the Airlangga relief in Surabaya is a memento of his work today. He suffered an eye ailment and had medical treatment in China, which forced him to focus on canvas work.

Pelukis Rakyat’s links with PKI-affiliated Lekra (People’s Art Association) later sealed Permadi’s fate.

But it was not until almost two decades later that he was taken from his house in Jakarta to be transported to Buru.

In between, he spent eight years in Bali, during which he won scholarships to study or hold exhibitions in East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria.

The repercussions of the PKI-triggered political chaos reverberated onto the island and he was forced to flee, leaving behind many of his art works.

He was beginning to recount the killings when he paused and asked not to discuss political issues. “We’d better not talk any further about them.”

His nightmare began one night. He was sleeping when a jeep full of military officers came over. “Your name is on the list and we have to take you to Kodim (Military district command),” he recollected.

Interrogation followed and Permadi was among thousands shipped to the island for incarceration.

Permadi said the arrest warrant came as no surprise to him, given his link with Lekra, although he said in his defense that he had never signed up formally to the organization.

“I merely took part in exhibitions that happened to be organized by Lekra,” he said.

Now 77, Permadi lives a humble life with his ailing wife in a small house in a crammed housing settlement in Lenteng Agung, South Jakarta.

His art works decorate the wall. Some are stacked on the floor or against the wall. “I haven’t finished it yet. It could fetch Rp 7.5 million,” he said referring to the 1 meter by 0.5 m Wanita pemecah batu (Women rock breakers). There is a 1980s black-and-white TV set on one side of the guest room.

On another side of the wall, there is a large painting that depicts a Takengon landscape — a beautiful image of a lake and hills.

“It’s cold there. Coconut palms will not survive. People grow coffee,” said Permadi who last visited his hometown in 1990.

“This coffee comes from Gayo. My relatives send us some regularly,” he said, pointing to the beverage served on the table.

Suddenly, Permadi felt homesick. “I hope I can go there for one last time. However, with my wife sick, that may be difficult,” he said. He had a look of uncertainty about him but it was evident his mind was already in his hometown.

The good times during his childhood are an experience that Permadi loves to recall.

Musthofid