Brandon Ritom is on a mission to document indigenous cultures of the world through art.

The Sarawakian indigenous artist does this through figurative and plein air landscape painting – a speciality that he developed over the years.

Born of Dayak descent, Brandon recently shared his thoughts on just why he is documenting indigenous cultures, specifically Slovenia’s Kurentovanje.

Kurentovanje is a famous 11-day carnival that takes place in the town of Ptuj and it commonly takes place between the months of February and March to usher in the arrival of spring.

Starting out in 1960 by Drago Hasl, the festival used to draw close to 100,000 participants. Visitors commonly attend it to experience the main attraction: The Kurent (also known as Korent).  According to early Slavic customs, Kurent is a representation of the “god of unrestrained pleasure and hedonism”.

I spoke to Brandon to better understand how the artist is preserving such a rich and diverse culture through his art form and why it’s important to do that.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Hey there, Brandon. Before we dive into your work, can you share a little bit about yourself and how you started out as an artist?

Hi Sukhbir, sure. My background is in Art and Science, having graduated in 2014. I spent several years pursuing personal studio projects and travelling before going back into the local Malaysian art scene from 2018 onwards. During that period, my work has changed focus from anatomical illustration and medical history to academic and plein air painting, and now, projects focused on indigenous themes. As described in this project writeup, research into the Kurentovanje happened entirely by coincidence, having travelled there originally for a work trip sponsored by ERASMUS in conjunction with the Centre for Malaysian Indigenous Studies (CMIS).

The trip happened to be timed with the tail end of the Kurentovanje (masked carnival), so after work meetings, I spent as much time documenting the event through photographs, sketches, and visits to the historical archives. I was experimenting with alternative means of presenting all the studio paintings and some of the writing done from the visit and felt that this short but succinct format would suit the nature of this particular project. It isn’t comprehensive, but I hoped that it provided a good starting point to understanding the unique traditions of this festival.

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Can you describe to me what went through your mind when you painted and sketched these artworks especially since you come from an indigenous background as well?

When I start, I try to think objectively, and not focus on a specific agenda in mind. My opinion is that the work itself should stand on sound technical merit before context and theory- representational painting is complicated enough ‘as is’ before thinking about how to talk about your work! Honestly, barring the sketches done indoors, my only thought was that it was rather cold! Working outdoors for some of the studies was not a particularly intelligent idea on my part, but urban sketching and plein air work are circumstantial and in the moment – if the situation allows it, then you have to put in the graft.

I was interested in learning the history and evolution of the outfits throughout the decades, and in particular, learning about what elements were retained, or let go, when they (the community) decided to focus on making the Kurentovanje a tourist attraction. For example, the modern Korent costume has a uniform look compared to older costumes seen in villages further afield, which has a more patchwork and individualised appearance based on materials available. As I understood, many of the symbolic rituals have been either lost or simplified since the early 20th century. Thus, the contemporary carnival shares its timing to fit pre-Lenten timings, with many of its ritualistic elements being syncretic with European Catholic traditions. These shares similarities with other societies, in which changes were made to traditional ceremonies to adapt to modern sensibilities. This can be a good thing (ie making a particular tradition more visible to the outside world) but also can be detrimental when much of the deep symbolism behind the rituals have been lost. It is fortunate that in Europe, there is funding allocated in properly promoting and maintaining these disappearing traditions. However, the same cannot be said for Malaysia, where often sidelined indigenous traditions are either under threat by lack of practitioners, funding, exposure, or otherwise pressure from a certain state or religious authorities.

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What I found fascinating is that Rusa supposedly represents a horse while we use the same word to describe a deer in the Malay language. What were some of the similarities you found between Ptuj and your own heritage when painting and sketching the Kurentovanje?

I think any similarities in the name was purely coincidental. I was interested, however, in how they have incorporated locally sourced materials in making the kurenti costumes. From the brass cowbells to the club with hedgehog skin, to the differences between field and hill Korant in the material used for making the coats, you can see how rural industries influence the types of materials that they have access to for making the costumes. The horns, leather tongue, and sorghum wheat moustaches of Kurenti costumes is a good example of this. Additionally, The Kura (hen), was notable as I learnt that one of Europe’s largest poultry farms is nearby the town itself. It begs the question, though- which came first, the chicken, or the factory?

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Which costume was the hardest to paint/sketch? Why was it challenging?

Without hesitation, the Green George (Zeleni Jurij). As it is literally a carnival costume wrapped in ivy. Ironically as a landscape painter, I do not have the patience to paint all those leaves. Thus it didn’t make the final cut for the paintings in the series! I’ll give it another shot in the future when expanding the project with more paintings to follow.

In various cultures, there has always been some form of celebrations or rituals to usher in Spring/Harvest. Why are these celebrations and rituals important, specifically for Ptuj?

I am not an anthropologist, nor entirely knowledgeable on this, so apologies in advance- here are just my quick observations on the matter. I find that agrarian societies tend to have festival timings to coincide with: primary crops grown, major seasonal changes, or religious observances. From what I understood, the modern-day Kurentovanje (modern here being after the 1960s) adapted to coincide with pre-Lenten timings in the Catholic calendar. You see this with Shrovetide, celebrated with merrymaking before the start of the Lenten season. There was a distinction between mid-winter and Carnival processional periods, with the former occurring during the winter solstice.

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Throughout many European societies, the winter solstice has religious and symbolic connotations, but much of it was lost with the adoption of world religions. Winter solstice in Northern countries has been associated with themes such as the death-rebirth cycle, or the ‘reborn year’ that marks the coming of spring. Chasing winter, the tagline for this project, suggests this- after learning about the original purpose of the ploughmen’s rituals for ushering in spring, and the speculated origins of the Korant in pre-Christian times (one of which being figures that ‘chased’ away winter).

Again, this is only my personal observation, which does not reflect what the locals would regard. It is worth noting that Ptuj is the oldest town in Slovenia, having had Illyrian/Celtic settlements followed by a Roman town fort (Poetovio) in its founding history. There are also remnants of ancient Mithraic temple-sites present in the surrounding area, so my purely conjectured guess is that the importance and specific symbolism of the rituals over the centuries are dependent on the dominant belief system and culture of the time.

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As an artist, what are the other cultures you would like to document in the coming years?

If I had unlimited funding, I would further explore carnival traditions in that region of Europe. This was just a very brief, superficial exploration of a subject matter that has taken decades to document and research, and unfortunately, much of the source material wasn’t in English so I was unable to understand a large majority of the research. Ultimately, I would document more costume examples, perhaps those further afield in the region. I would like to have more understanding of the various accessories, parts, etc that come into the making of the carnival costumes, to get a more in-depth understanding of the tradition itself beyond simply making paintings.

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Finally, if people were to study all the paintings you’ve done on Ptuj, where can they go?

For now, the photographs, some writing, and images are online, given the current situation with exhibiting physical work. The Instagram page where I will be posting all material is here.

In the future, I hope to be able to showcase the finished paintings and sketches in a small gallery show- stay tuned for more information on this!

All images in this feature were supplied by Brandon Ritom. 

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