Born at a time when Balinese women’s lives were largely relegated to the domestic realm, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih (Murni), a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a domestic worker from the age of 10
and, controversially, in the context of her generation’s Bali, a divorcee, could not be contained. By the mid- 1990s, her striking and graphic depictions of female sexuality, bodies, and inner worlds sent shockwaves through the Balinese art scene. Adapting the vibrant, flat planes and bold figuration of traditional Balinese painting—Kamasan—Murni reflected upon her own personal and gendered experiences as she combatted a lifetime of abuse, infertility, and sickness. Explicitly sexual and occasionally absurd, the strange and disembodied women Murni rendered could not function as required under Bali’s societal constraints; instead, these figures implied the possibility of a more liberated, dynamic world. Since her death from ovarian cancer at the age of 40, Murni’s unflinching interrogation of her own subconscious remains a testament to a life lived exuberantly and in defiance. In recent decades, her works have also been increasingly recognized in the Indonesian and broader South East Asian contexts as occupying a distinct art historical position: as an inheritor of several generations of modernist imagination and as precursor and inspiration for a wave of artists embracing an empowered feminist and critical worldview.

Works in the exhibition: Wah Nikmatnya (2000), acrylic paint on canvas, 60 × 40 cm; Mencapai Kenimatan I (1999), acrylic paint on canvas, 100 × 50 cm; Menikmati (2001), acrylic paint on canvas, 55 × 70.5 cm; Sangat Menikmati (2004), acrylic paint on canvas, 80 × 60 cm; Aman Tapan Kuatir (2004), acrylic paint on canvas, 170 × 110 cm; Suatu Upacar Tradisional (2002), acrylic paint on canvas, 70 × 70 cm; Story of Phenomphen (2003), acrylic on canvas, 60 × 90 cm. Courtesy of the Estate of I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih