Suprobo: Comprehension on Management is a Must

Though age influences the working quality, he still possesses his own level of maturity.

Between 75 percent talent : 25 percent perseverance and 25 percent talent : 75 percent will, I choose the second one more. To be a painter requires a strong will.

Suprobo, or mostly known to people as Probo, was born in Pati of Central Java on 10 February 1958. His father was a govern-ment official who also painted. To have grown up in an artistic family, Probo’s dream was not far from his father’s focus, which is to be a painter.

He migrated to Jakarta within the 1980s. Before concentrating on painting, Probo first acted out the job as an illustrator in the Puteri Indonesia magazine. Besides that he also focused on graphic de-sign. Those two worlds came to be the most influential grounds for his techniques on painting processing.

For Probo, a contemporary painter should comprehend design. The competence in designing, he perceives, will be a great help in determining the composition of the painting. “First I decide the theme, then design, and afterwards dive in to the visualization phase,” Probo explained his creative process.

“Today painters are demanded to be able to design. When a painter is unaware of design, his painting will become dull,” he continued.

Besides the comprehension in design, a painter should be knowl-edgeable in regards of management. Be it self management in cre-ating, socializing, or even marketing. That is because, according to him, by all that, a painter will be able to maximize his work productivity.

Probo was not kidding, because what he says is taken from his own personal experience. Having met obstacles in his early exhibitions, Probo then realized that to be an artist one needs to know more about management.

“In 1992 I did a sole exhibition in Mitra Budaya Jakarta. Not one of my paintings was sold back then. But after I learned manage-ment and applied the knowledge in the upcoming exhibitions, my paintings were always sold out. Even those works that would not sell during the Mitra Budaya exhibition got sold during the next exhibitions.

”Still related to the issue of management, Probo thinks that it is the thing that have brought his painting style to become simpler. Start-ing from the year 2000, he has now eliminated supporting images as his paintings’ backgrounds. Lately his canvas media has been more focused on single objects of the theme he wishes to expose.

When illustrating a child playing his kite, Probo would then just make an image of a child holding a rope that suspends up without any other addi-tions. Probo’s wit in processing symbols which allows his canvas room to be inhabited more by empty spaces still holds its own appeal.

“Those empty spaces are actually meant to serve as breaks for observers before they get into the focus on the painting. People are busy nowadays; wanting less and less of deep thoughts. That’s why I make simple works only. This is part of my management.. ha ha ha,” he laughs aloud.

Besides manifesting as a form of management for his works to continue being appreciated by public, Probo again perceives that his much simpler works are also a part of his strategy in overcoming his age. Along with age, one’s tendency to work in more detail and prudence will lessen, and such is the thing that Probo is trying to deal with.

Suprobo with his painting style which has lately become much simpler may well say that it is part of the applied management. But one thing for certain is that his experience for tens of years in the painting business has brought him to his own level of maturity. It is the maturity which can be seen in his painting style.