Q&A: Ambara Baratawidjaja

December 4th, 2007

Ambara Baratawidjaja is well-known “paint doctor” (or “healing painter”?) who travels around the world to look for inspiring places for her Chinese ink and watercolor paintings.

What inspired you to paint first?

Fairy tales and my own family legends told by my aunt and grandmother.

How did you achieve your current style?

I never seek a particular style, but I was eager to learn in depth every or mainstream techniques, such as classic, landscaping and free-style Chinese brush. Somehow my senses began to find a way to express themselves by mixing all those techniques. My current painting is unorthodox, since in pure Chinese brush philosophy they are never mixed. But my life is a mix, so my life took over “dogma” and, suddenly, there was my current style which, however, seems to be still evolving. I cannot call it a static style, but just a current moment of my art.

What other interests do you have outside of painting?

I need a day of 28 hours to spare time for them! Aside from my charity tasks, I love outdoor activities such as tennis, scuba diving, river rafting, skiing and horse riding, and indoor activities like dancing, reading, choir singing and movies. But the fascination of my life is adventure traveling with photography, which provides both a source of inspirationand travel notes for my painting.

How do you keep motivated?

My studio is our living room, always ready for a couple of brush strokes when I come in and out of the house. Sometimes I do one stroke and then I stop, and sometimes I wake up at three in the morning and can’t stop for three days. My motivation flows out of my daily life, my husband and kids, my charity work, sports and my ups and downs, plenty of motivation.

What is the more difficult job, medical doctor or a painter?

As per my experience in a family where both parents and all four of us daughters are medical doctors, the responsibility on other people’s lives is definitively greater than the pleasure of painting. But the exuberance of realizing that I can heal someone sometime is similar to when I manage to complete a painting to my satisfaction.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?

Paint, paint and paint, inspired or not. The tools will then became extensions of yourself and your thoughts will find a way onto the paper or canvas, sometimes without you even realizing how. One piece of advice I would like to give to new artists is, “Just believe in yourself, that you can do it and go for it”!

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