SAKA Museum’s Summer Program

SAKA Museum’s Summer Program

by Marlowe Bandem

SAKA Museum, August 2025

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As Bali’s dry season settles in, the island comes alive under clear blue skies, with frangipani trees bursting into bloom and kites dancing overhead. It is a season of festivals and cultural encounters, and SAKA Museum joined in with a program designed to draw visitors deeper into the world of Balinese art.

Running from 28 June to 2 August 2025, the Summer Program offered extended evening access through SAKA After Hours and a trio of hands-on workshops led by three remarkable young artists committed to carrying Bali’s visual traditions forward.

Aligned with the height of Bali’s travel season and celebrating the full opening of SAKA’s exhibitions, the program invited guests to experience the richness of Balinese heritage at an unhurried pace.

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After Hours: Heritage in Twilight

On Thursdays and Saturdays during this period, the museum kept its doors open until 8 PM, creating a unique opportunity to encounter its collections and exhibitions in the shifting light of sunset.

The garden and surrounding architecture transformed into a serene twilight stage as the garden served as a viewing deck for the evening sky, while the building’s illuminated form glowed warmly from within, casting a romantic yet reflective atmosphere. Inside, the galleries softened into an intimate constellation, their ceilings dotted with star-like LEDs. For some, it became the perfect prelude to dinner; for others, a gentle close to a day of exploration.

In a Bali often defined by its lively energy, SAKA After Hours offered a slower rhythm, a space to linger, and a chance to let art and evening light intermingle.

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Heritage in Your Hands

Beyond the galleries, the summer program extends into the workshop space, where guests can create, learn, and connect with living legacies of Balinese creativity. Across the season, three major traditions took center stage, each explored through guided sessions led by respected artists.

Designed for anyone with a spark of curiosity, whether a traveler, a culture-minded local, a young artist, or a family seeking something more meaningful, SAKA’s workshop sessions offered an open, welcoming space to engage with Balinese heritage through direct creation. 

“These workshops were meant to feel inclusive and hands-on,” said Tantri Arihta Sitepu, SAKA’s Visitation Manager. “It didn’t matter if you were a beginner or a practicing artist, what mattered was your openness. We wanted visitors to not just learn about Balinese art, but to feel it in their hands, to experience the joy of making something from tradition with their own touch.”

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Kamasan Portrait Workshop | 4 July & 25 July 2025

Led by emerging artist Made Chandra, this workshop offers a fun opportunity to engage directly with Kamasan painting, the foundational style of Balinese visual storytelling. Originating in Klungkung’s royal courts, Kamasan painting is defined by its flat composition, narrative clarity, and characters drawn from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. In a landscape of ever-shifting styles, Kamasan remains a visual language that continues to structure the island’s spiritual and aesthetic worldview.

Born in Baturaja, South Sumatra in 2004, Chandra discovered his Balinese cultural roots not through lineage but through intense learning. The son of a Balinese transmigrant, his first connection came through gamelan music, a communal practice that led him into the world of line, color, and composition.

“Kamasan is the perfect foundation for learning Balinese art,” he reflects. “Not just because it remains alive in the village where it began, but because it leaves room for interpretation. I use it to express how Bali is changing and how I’m changing with it.”

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Best known for blending Kamasan technique with surrealist and abstract elements, Chandra returns to fundamentals for this workshop. Using his illustrated guide, participants explore the classical portrait-making process in the Kamasan style, with an emphasis on a continuous, flowing line. Pencil in hand, the exercise becomes a dialogue between tradition and self-expression.

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Chandra’s fast-rising career includes Kamasan Art Fusion (Gunarsa Museum, Bali, 2024), the 14th International Exhibition of Traditional Fine Arts (Shanghai Art Collection Museum, 2024), Luna Negra (Grey Art Gallery, Bandung, 2025), and A Remix of Junctures (Lano Contemporary, Ubud, 2025). Across these, he examines how classical Balinese forms adapt to modern pressures without losing their integrity.

With a soft-spoken presence, Chandra guides each session not as a distant instructor, but as a fellow art-lover, encouraging participants to consider not only how to draw, but why we return to these forms. As someone who chose Kamasan rather than inherited it, he offers something special by deeply respecting tradition while keeping it flexible and open.

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Linocut Printmaking Workshop | 19 July 2025

Mentored by I Kadek Septa Adi, a Balinese printmaker known for merging tradition with experimentation, this workshop offered a hands-on immersion into one of the most accessible yet expressive techniques in printmaking. Participants moved through every stage of the process, from drawing and carving designs into linoleum blocks to rolling on ink and pressing their prints onto paper and tote bags. The session balanced discipline with discovery, from the rhythmic carving of lines to the tactile pleasure of inking, and the small, satisfying surprises revealed in each final print.

A graduate of Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha’s Fine Arts Education program, Septa’s practice draws from classical Balinese visual traditions such as Batuan and Kamasan, reframed through a contemporary lens. His recent exhibitions include Layered Narratives at Art 1 New Museum in Jakarta (2025), Marka/Matriks at Salihara Gallery in Jakarta (2025), and On Tradition at 16albermarle Project Space in Sydney (2024), all exploring how inherited aesthetics can evolve through modern print media.

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As introduced in the workshop, linocut is a form of relief printmaking where designs are carved into a sheet of linoleum, inked on the raised surfaces, and printed by hand. Softer and easier to cut than wood, linoleum allowed participants to create clean, flowing lines without mechanical tools. While simple in concept, the technique required focus and sensitivity, opening a slow, process-driven dialogue between hand, material, and image.

What made the session memorable was Septa’s gentle and exploratory teaching style. He encouraged participants to experiment, to welcome the natural imperfections of the medium, and to see them as part of the work’s character. More than learning a skill, attendees gained an appreciation for the craftsmanship behind repetition and variation and for how a modest material like linoleum can carry memory, rhythm, and storytelling with unexpected depth.

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Batuan Painting Workshop | 2 August 2025

This session welcomed participants into the layered, symbol-rich world of Batuan painting, guided by master artist Made Griyawan, a second-generation painter from Batuan village. Known for its dense compositions, fine brushwork, and narrative complexity, the Batuan style is often seen as a mirror of Bali’s own layered cosmology. For Griyawan, however, it has always been more than a vehicle for ritual or tourism. It is a personal language of identity, consciousness, and exploration.

Born in 1979 in Batuan, Griyawan began drawing at the age of seven under the guidance of his father, the renowned painter I Wayan Taweng, and his mother Ni Wayan Bari. “I’m grateful to be my father’s son,” he reflects, “but he always told me, don’t imitate. Draw what you love.”

That early push toward individuality shaped his entire practice. Though he never studied art formally, Griyawan’s work emerged from years of self-guided learning, which he describes as “conscious and unconscious searching for who I am.” Today, his paintings move beyond the ritualistic and touristic tropes often associated with Batuan. His compositions are alive with fluid forms of fish, waves, currents, and shimmering textures that suggest movement rather than stasis. It is no coincidence that his studio is named Studio Gelombang, or “Wave Studio.”

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“Gelombang is more than just a visual motif,” Griyawan explains. “It’s a mindset and a constant state of flow, vibration, and openness. Waves carry memory, but they never stay still. That’s how I see my art. Rooted, yes, but always moving, always changing shape.”

His recent exhibitions reflect this evolution, from Balinese Masters at AB.BC Building, Bali (2019) and Panca Maha Bhuta at Kempinski, Bali (2024) to Momotaro at Narita Gallery, Tokyo (2025) and the Outsider Art Fair in New York (2025). Through it all, Griyawan remains loyal to the precision of the Batuan tradition while quietly and deliberately reshaping it.

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A Summer to Remember

SAKA’s summer program was about stepping fully into the experience. Through brush, blade, and ink, guests engaged with the living pulse of Balinese heritage, discovering how classical forms continue to evolve while staying deeply rooted. Each workshop began with context, with stories of place, community, and lineage, turning every session beyond a lesson in technique. It was a conversation between the past and the present, between form and feeling.

The feeling lingered long after the worktables were cleared. As sessions wrapped up, a quiet sense of shared contentment filled the space. Smiles spread across faces, prints were carefully packed, and no one checked their watches or hurried to catch the sunset.

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SAKA After Hours became a modest triumph in timekeeping, with no traffic panic and no fear of missing out, only art unfolding at an unhurried pace. Even guests who had already checked out found themselves gently drawn back into the rhythm of AYANA Bali, proving that check-out time is a mere suggestion when you are in a sanctuary.

At SAKA Museum, timeless culture unfolds in new ways, even after hours.