Pahit Manis, Night Forest by Leyla Stevens

The Balinese philosophy of Tri Hita Karana professes a harmony between gods, people, and the environment where trees and forests are harbingers of well-being. Trees embody calm serenity and the nourishing richness of nature. Yet, in Balinese tradition, the forest can also be a realm of disorder and mayhem.

This dark and menacing aspect is frequently depicted in Batuan paintings. Four such paintings from the Australian Museum collection are currently on display at AGNSW alongside a short film by Balinese-Australian artist Leyla Stevens.¹

The Batuan style originated in the 1930s when Ida Bagus Made Togog and Ida Bagus Made Wija began experimenting with ink-wash paintings on a black background. Many paintings were commissioned and collected in Bali in 1937 by anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. They depict the world differently from traditional genres of didactic, temple-wayang (shadow puppet) convention, introducing a darker mood, ambiguity, and apprehension.

The story of Cosmic Tree and White Tiger

These settings and contradictions provide a richly layered framework within which puppeteer – Dalang, Ida Ayu Sri Widnyani re-enacts the story of destruction through the lamentation of the Cosmic Tree and the White Tiger.

At the heart of the story is the colossal environmental crisis that the Tree of the Universe and the Tiger bemoan. Bali’s success as a tourist destination has its share of lamentable environmental and social results. In the artwork’s animated footage (based on Batuan paintings) humans, animals, and beasts assault and devour each other.

Stevens scripted the story in the form of Tantri narratives that are typically animal tales. A ruler has a habit of killing his casual lovers by the end of the night together. But Tantri, who finds herself in this quandary, tells him stories that never finish, thus keeping his curiosity and her life prolonged. The Dalang in the film assumes a role of Tantri, a storyteller. In a way it is Tantri-Dalang that is the story. She laments with her companion puppets in deeply empathetic voice, but in the settings and silence, she implies a hope and a solution.

The puppet show is supplemented by stunningly beautiful footage of serene old forests with magnificent trees and the sound of stillness. The forest’s beauty takes us to nurturing and harmonious nature, almost a utopian, dreamlike conception of peaceful existence.

Storytelling and survival

The storytelling is the way of survival. Bali’s ecological crisis can be averted, and the blueprint is set in the tradition where caring for people is also caring for nature, for places, and for spirits. Restoring the balance of the universe is a central motif of the rituals, with their physical and spiritual cleansing. The film is framed in four parts from the new to the full moon, as heavenly and earthly phases unroll, accentuating circularity, alluding to the realization that the productive calm and order can and must return. Perhaps that links to snippets from the life of artists. Thus, I Made Griyawan, a descendant of one of the early Batuan painters, appears working on his painting. A transcript of a dream by Batuan master painter Ida Made Bagus Togog is read.

By filming and animating paintings (from various collections), Stevens bridges the past and present and, by reinventing the narratives, gives them a new meaning and new existence. She is passionate about reclaiming paintings through her art and she champions the restorative power of culture and art and her hope for a positive future.

Dalang’s powerful and moving puppet performance and animated violence in the forest is enhanced by music by Isha Ram Das. On one level the story is deceptively clear, but the artist does not expect or even want us to comprehend everything. The film has a moral purpose, but it is conveyed via poetic means, provoking an empathetic and emotive response. The revelation is perhaps in the beauty of artistic craft, in visual and audio senses, more than in verbalized messages and rational arguments. A testimony to the quality of this artwork is that we walk out immersed and moved, captivated by a lyrical narrative, in a contemplative mood with aesthetic contentment.