IGAK Murniasih

(she/her)
1966-2006, Bali, Indonesia

The exaggerated anatomical forms and pastel colours of IGAK Murniasih’s (Murni) Nyut Nyut bestows upon the painting a deceptively light-hearted and comedic quality. But as our eyes travel along the twisted arm of the woman in Nyut Nyut, to the claw-like hand which has penetrated her own body, we bear witness to an unsettling image of violence. The image is one of simultaneous threat and desire, picturing both the (self-enacted) transgression of the woman’s body and an erotic gesture towards her genitalia. Murni deploys these contorted bodies as vehicles for the expression of a broader landscape of gendered oppression and trauma inflicted on women’s bodies, during but not limited to the patriarchal ideological system of New Order Indonesia. Even as she does so, they remain powerfully and viscerally evocative of feminine desire, sensuality and sexuality.

Nyut Nyut 2001
acrylic on canvas
150 x 100 cm