Teguh Ostenrik in his workshop – hetanews.com
Jayapura, Jubi – A German-educated painter and sculptor, Teguh Ostenrik, is one of the best Indonesian fine artists. His paintings and sculptures have been bought by many collectors as well as reviewed by art curators from Indonesia and abroad.
But who knows if he had opinion about Papua and Papua indigenous people who occupied the western island of the island that used to known as Nueva Guinea. At his house that also used as studio, located at Cilandak Barat area, there’s a design of his three statues, which currently decorated the St. Yohannes Maria Vianney Church in Cilangkap. One of those statues is Corpus Christi statue, which he admitted to be inspired from Papuan.
“Jesus that I made is Jesus from Papua,” Teguh, who graduated from Fine Arts Hochschule der Kuenste, Berlin, Germany, told Tempo a year ago.
He ignored the typical of Jesus’ face that is common for people at the worldwide in making the statue of Corpus Christi. For him, Jesus shouldn’t necessary have nosed, sharp-chinned, curly hair and straight beard. To fight this idea, he made model from the face of Papuan.
The height of the phenomenal Jesus statue is up to 5.30 meters. The statue is using the basic material consisted of a ton of iron waste.
“It’s a figure of emancipator. Because Papuan has too long been colonialized by Java,” he explained to rumah123.com on last week. He added one of intimidations against Papuans is because of their darker skin. “While Papuans are more polite,” he said.
He also sure that Papuans are more civilized than what have been thought negatively by most of people.
“A football game played by Papuans is the real example,” he said. He explained, in the football game played by Papuans, the score was always the same. He heard this from his friend, a pastor in Papua. “They used to live together in peace. Even playing football they always try to get the equal score,” he said. (*)
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