Inky Onky

Between 29th January and 10th February, in the Centre d’Art there was an exhibition of drawings by Ongkie Tan, titled ‘Inky Onky’.

Ongkie Tan’s art is sharp, detailed, with a whirr of strokes, mostly in his trademark inky black and occasional subtle colours.

His background as a hair stylist comes through in his art, with a sense of layered proportion. I ask him if he is a tattoo artist and he replies, “No, but I could be because I have a steady hand”. That steadiness is apparent in the precision with which he depicts his subject-matter, including cascades of unique feathers, and legs and toes splayed akimbo.

Beyond the details, this exhibition is an immersion into his subconscious, full of whirling flow, almost spectral and yet also with needles, beaks and talons. He physically demonstrates and compares this to Tai Chi, with an at first slow sweeping movement and then a sudden pounce, explaining that he “goes with the flow” and then there will be sudden “deadly movements”.

His art emerges organically, “like a mystery”, he says, “all my art is uncertain”, the process is “always a struggle. It’s never perfect and I need to fix it. It’s a journey, I go on steps, discover what direction to go, I struggle, want to throw it away, keep going, and then suddenly I see the light and then it comes right away.”

There is are hints of the netherworlds in his illustrations and he agrees that it “comes from my unconscious”, musing that “life is entangled, we find our way out of it, struggle, and adjust; if we don’t adjust then we’re dead.”

Each piece takes him a week or 10 days. For Ongkie, “art is not about the subject, it’s about the line, the movement. The line is an artist’s signal. The line and the movement can’t lie.”

As to the frequent birds in his pictures, he says that “my spirit is a bird, wanting to go to the light, the bird is flying. Our spirit needs to keep flying.”

Ongkie’s personal life reflects this flying journey. He grew up in a family as one of nine siblings in Indonesian Borneo, before moving to Hollywood, and, for many years now Auroville. He signs his paintings in English letters and Chinese characters, reflecting his heritages. This exhibition captures parts of him in this moment, his dreaming made visible for us.