Jero Wayan Amer Ambarie · 1964
In her sixties, and still painting on the floor of her studio.
Jero Wayan Amer Ambarie was born in 1964 in Penestanan, the village just west of Ubud where the Young Artists style began. Her father was a farmer who became a painter after learning from Arie Smit, the Dutch artist whose encouragement gave that village its place in Balinese art.
She learned by watching him. As a small child her paintings were already good enough to hang in his exhibitions — under his name, as was normal at the time. In 1979, still at school, she won first prize in the National Youth painting competition in Jakarta.
Painting made her different from the other girls in the village and she came close to giving it up. Her school talked her out of it, and she has not stopped since — through marriage, three children, and more than forty years.
She still works the way she always has: cross-legged on the floor, the canvas propped in front of her, filling it with the ordinary life of Bali. Fish markets, harvest days, the crowd on the sand when the boats come in. Look closely and there is a joke in there somewhere — a dog making off with a fish, a child who has wandered away from their mother. That quiet humour is as much her signature as the name in the corner.
Selected exhibitions
- 1979First prize, National Youth painting competition, Jakarta
- 1995Seniwati Gallery group exhibition, Grand Mirage Hotel, Nusa Dua
- 1995Seniwati Gallery group exhibition, Media Park Sud, Cologne, Germany
- 1996Seniwati Gallery group exhibition, Museum Puri Lukisan, Ubud
- 1996Museum Puri Lukisan group exhibition, “The Young Artists of Bali”
- 1996Seniwati Gallery exhibition, Bentara Budaya, Jakarta
- 1997Kebyar Seni group show, Museum Puri Lukisan, Ubud
- 1998Group show, Rudana Museum, Mas, Ubud
Pasar di PantaiBeach Market
Oil on canvas · 50 × 60 cm · signed “Amer Ambari, Bali”
Early morning on a fishing beach. The sails are still out on the water, dolphins break the surface, and on the sand the night's catch is already changing hands.
There are more than eighty figures here, each one painted separately: porters balancing their shoulder baskets, women picking through the fish, children in the way of everybody, and two village dogs who know exactly where to stand.
- Price
- On request — ask the artist
This number reaches Jero Wayan and her family directly. Bali Real Vacation takes no commission on a sale — we simply put her work in front of people who would never otherwise see it. Indonesian is easiest for her, so we have written the opening message in both languages for you.
Past work
