 |
 |
|
|
||
|
 |
 The 34 drawings in Kamadhatu, ten of which are excerpted here, were done between 1984 and 1991. Some parts were previously published in Screw Magazine and Weirdo. 500 copies were printed In October, 2004, one of the drawings from Kamadhatu ran in a local annual arts magazine called KC Voices. Here's the page. As a result of that, a local dinner theater called The New Theatre Restaurant asked me to put up a collection of pictures from Kamadhatu. Read about that here. For an enlargment of the cover illustration click here. |
|
 |
PLATE ONE "JUDGEMENT ON GUNUNG PARE" Gunung Pare (literally "Mt. Zucchini") is a now-defunct red-light village in the countryside near Solo, Central Java. |
 |
PLATE SIX "SEPERTI GADIS..." An Indonesian play on words: one-third is sepertiga, so when you say the whole thing together it comes out seperti gadis tapi janda |
|||
 |
PLATE SEVEN "MELAYANI NAFSU SETAN" Often girls impelled to submit to wanton embraces are said by the tabloids to melayani nafsu setan: literally, "serve the devil's lust." |
|||
 |
PLATE NINE "PUISSANT SAX" There is a sad and unexplainable dearth of lazily turning overhead fans in Indonesia. |
|||
 |
PLATE FIFTEEN "AMATORY EXCESS AND THE DEMIMONDAINE" Both ends burning with a half-life. |
|||
 |
PLATE SIXTEEN "CELESTIAL NYMPHS VS. ARJUNA" Tilottama and Supraba are the most fetching of the seven bidadari sent down from heaven to Mt. Indrakila. Their mission: to use whatever means are necessary to tempt Arjuna out of his intense, world-shaking state of meditation. |
|||
 |
PLATE SEVENTEEN "KI JAKA PRESSES HIS SUIT" Ki Jaka is one of many characters in Indonesian folklore who come across bathing maidens |
|||
 |
PLATE TWENTY-THREE "KUNTILANAK FROM PONTILANAK" A kuntilanak is a beautiful but dangerous female spirit. One of her specialties is seducing unwary men. Identifying feature: a gaping putrid hole in her back (thus the long hair). In Malaysia she is known as a pontianak, which also happens to be the name of a provincial capital in Indonesian Borneo. Nobody in Pontianak seems to know why, although I did see some pretty spooky transvestites hanging out in front of a graveyard there one foggy evening. |
|||
 |
PLATE TWENTY-SEVEN "DURGA: ATTEMPTED VENERY" Durga, devourer of devouring time, garmented with space, tries to bring out the "old adam" in an aged public servant. |
|||
 |
PLATE TWENTY-EIGHT "COUCH DANCING" "Together they mounted the delirious slopes of pastel-hued, jolting excitement until the sine qua non of rapture exploded over them." |
|||
 |
END PAGE "NOTES" This is where the pithy comments that go with these plates reside. The page is graced with an image of the artist being nurtured by his muse. |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
All material on this Website is copyright Bruce Carleton. You may not repost, reprint, or otherwise republish, retransmit or reproduce any material on any of the pages of this Website without express permission of Bruce Carleton. All rights reserved. |