Myuran Sukumaran captures his final nemesis

MYURAN Sukumaran’s last Bali art conveys his anguish and mourning in anticipation of death.

MYURAN Sukumaran’s last Bali art conveys his anguish and mourning in anticipation of death.

But the first image he painted after his appeal for presidential clemency was refused is of the man who has sent him to die at Nusakambangan, Joko Widodo.

It was painted on January 23 and carries an inscription “people can change”, which Mr Joko has so far refused to heed.

The President refused his clemency application on December 30 but Sukumaran was not told until about a week later in Kerobokan jail, where he and Andrew Chan have been under sentence of death for heroin smuggling since February 2006.

He stopped painting for several weeks, struggling with his anguish.

Sydney artist Ben Quilty, his mentor, urged Sukumaran to take up brushes again, because art is not just his passion but his refuge. Sukumaran returned to his painting and resumed art classes for other inmates.

The series of last paintings, before he and Chan were removed to Nusakambangan prison island last week, portray 33-year-old Sukumaran’s bleak state of mind and apparent obsession with his pending death.

The Australian has seen half a dozen images of the paintings, some depicting an anguished Sukumaran in a white execution gown.

In one, his face appears contorted, his mouth open. In another, a solitary hand grasps on to a milky, diaphanous organism, as if to a phantom life. Others are grieving portraits of his mother Raji and brother Chinthu.

Sukumaran wished the family to keep those paintings and his self portraits, with his remaining work to be sold to fund an arts centre outside the jail for former inmates he had taught.

It is unknown if Sukumaran is able to draw at Nusakambangan where he and Chan, 31, await the firing squad. Their final legal appeal will be heard tomorrow in the Jakarta Administrative Court.

Another of Sukumaran’s last wishes, that his rehabilitation art program flourishes, will in some way be fulfilled on Friday night when Kerobokan inmates’ art will be auctioned in Kuta.

The New Lives Through Art exhibition will however omit two of Sukumaran’s works. They have been cancelled from the showing by prison authorities reportedly wary of a disturbance.

The exhibition organiser, Norwegian academic Oivind Zahlsen, said Sukumaran appeared to be “not in this world anymore’’.

Mr Zahlsen said his friend had become fixated by his death before the executions of six drug convicts on January 18.

I heard they’re going to start killing people, Mr Zahlsen quoted his friend as saying.

“He talked about his death about two or three weeks ago. It was hard, I told him he was a hero and inspiration to me,’’ he said.

In a video of Mr Zahlsen interviewing Sukumaran in the Kerobokan art studio on November 4, the Australian says painting enabled his salvation.

“Regardless of what happens, I still have hope I will still be able to do the work that I’m doing for a long time.”

Friday’s auction of 91 pieces displays the work of current and former inmates who studied under Sukumaran.

Sukumaran planned the auction, examining all the pieces and tagging them with reserve prices ranging from Rp500,000 ($49.90) to Rp6 million.

His absence has left a void at Kerobokan, Mr Zahlsen said. Inmates had withdrawn from activities as a sense of loss and disorganisation took over.

Additional reporting Peter Alford