Tracing Oototol’s Practice in “Warna Hidup” at ROH and Komunitas Salihara
ROH is pleased to present Warna Hidup, a solo exhibition by Oototol. Marking the artist’s first solo presentation in Jakarta, the exhibition unfolds across two venues, ROH and Komunitas Salihara, capturing the pluralism that defined the late Balinese artist’s practice. Working primarily with Chinese ink using bamboo pens and brushes, Oototol (b. ?–2009) developed a consistent visual language within a constellation of Balinese practitioners often associated with the Murni, Mokoh, and Mondo traditions, whose formal affinities resonate throughout his work.
While Oototol’s practice is often framed through these influences, this exhibition instead foregrounds his singular vision. Uniformed figures–frequently understood as self-portraits—recur as central narrators across many of his paintings, a motif said to be influenced by the artist’s interest in Indonesia’s first president, Soekarno. Within these compositions, the figures engage in a wide range of activities: harvesting rice, sharing meals, communing with one another, giving birth, committing acts of violence, and playing with animals. All forms of human experience are absorbed into the logic of the uniform. At times, non-human creatures are also depicted wearing hats and uniforms. Oototol’s imagination extends further into modes of transport, featuring airplanes, motorbikes, and mythological beings carrying these figures across land and water. In other works, this relationship is inverted, with humans carrying animals instead. Within this visual universe, there appears to be little that a “soldier” cannot do. This fluid movement between the personal, historical, and cosmological realms forms one of the defining strengths of Oototol’s practice.
What may initially appear as straightforward depictions of everyday Balinese life reveals, upon closer examination, a high degree of compositional and conceptual complexity. The paintings are rich with metaphorical allusions, presenting a polyphonic interplay between reality and imagination without hierarchical distinction. The innocence and playfulness of Oototol’s approach recall the spirit of Fischli and Weiss, whose pursuit of profound ideas is often expressed through an accessible visual language. At the same time, Oototol’s figures remain embedded within structures of ceremony and social taxonomy, reflecting a Balinese cosmology in which life and death operate as dual guiding forces. Yet throughout his body of work, these figures often extend beyond the edges of the frame, suggesting a life lived outside normative boundaries. The recurring uniform self-portrait becomes a site of tension–simultaneously part of the social fabric and distinct in its identity and position. Repeated across different contexts and encounters, the same figure in the same uniform gradually shifts in meaning, transforming a symbol of control into one of remarkable flexibility.
Oototol’s practice may also be read as subtly subversive, particularly in its treatment of the uniform as a common symbol of power: either by diminishing its authority or by exposing how such power absorbs life into its own logic, at times approaching parody. However, such interpretations risk reducing the work’s inherent strangeness and resistance to easy assimilation. In a contemporary context where similar iconography has become inseparable from competing visions of political futures, it is worth reconsidering what Oototol has left behind: what remains unresolved, and what questions his work continues to pose today.
The exhibition title, Warna Hidup–which translates to the color of life–appears paradoxical given Oototol’s exclusive use of monochromatic ink. Yet within this constraint, his work reveals a wide spectrum of life and culture, rooted in Pengosekan and Bali, where he was born, while also resonating with broader, universal concerns. The absence of color becomes a form of abundance in itself, a limitation that intensifies the interplay between mark, surface, and space. Oototol’s paintings reflect a mind and spirit that are transgressive, radical, and strikingly contemporary, continuing to resonate as reflections of the present moment.
Accompanying the exhibition are essays by Hera Chan, Roger Nelson, and Ibrahim Soetomo, each offering distinct perspectives that expand the discourse surrounding Oototol’s life and thought. A public program curated by Putu Sridiniari further opens space for reflection and engagement with the works on view. Together, these elements mark an early step in a broader effort to refocus attention on an artist who, in the restless movement of his imagination, continues to “stray”, to borrow Nelson’s term, beyond our full grasp.
