Frans’ ideals
Frans is a restless person and a thinker. He is frequently uncompromising in his attitude, particularly whenever there are apparent discrepancies. This is especially so when there are contradictions within the domain of art. In Nadjira’s opinion, art cannot be separated from morals and behaviour. To Nadjira, art is not only a matter of beauty, but also is an aesthetic from which a mental order and life attitude can grow. Nadjira has consistently proved throughout his life this positive association of art and morality.

In Frans Nadjira’s eye, reality never exists as a monoreality. That is why a piece of canvas spread in front of him is like a gateway to new possibilities. The same feeling comes to him whenever he takes his pen and lets the ink flow with his ideas into the form of a poem or short story. "Through flexibility, restlessness, or whatever, we can present what we wish as a new reality," he reflects.

At his quiet home in Batubulan, Gianyar (10 km to the east of Denpasar), he presents new realities on dozens of canvases. According to Frans, the presentation of new reality after new reality on his canvases is achieved through the process of parapsychology, an artistic method and mode of expression originating in a person’s subconscious life. This is, he believes, what distinguishes his artistic achievements from other artists. Nadjira refers to the standard mode of artistic expression (most commonly known as automatism) as psychography.

The automatism method, which Nadjira explains stems from the principle of psychoanalysis, obtains artistic inspiration from the individual’s pre-conscious life, which then finds expression on the canvas through a subconscious process: letting the whole body move without the intervention of conscious thinking. This method makes the artist delve deep into the past, touching even primitive territories beyond human rational existence.

The elements from Nadjira’s pre-conscious wanderings that are eventually visualised on his canvases are naturally archaic objects, formless and quite primitive — allowing, however, ample opportunities for viewers to exercise their own imagination. The psyche, subconscious, dreams, psychological restlessness — all are sources of the creative process for Frans Nadjira.

Nadjira does not start from conception because conception, which for him relies on rationality as a source of intelligence, is not the only glory in human existence. He believes that human beings can aspire to another, greater glory — that of spiritual intelligence. His creative process, that is, his artistic achievement on the canvas, must indeed pass this spiritual selection.

The resting place
Frans Nadjira’s creative vision on the canvas is an expression of primitive, naïve and innocent faithfulness. Lines, colours, compositions, and tones are free to flow in response to spiritual demands. Wildness, tenderness, colour intensity or tightness and looseness in composition turn into creative dynamics in a number of his paintings. This is demonstrated in both his early works, such as "Nightmare" and "Green Weed", and the works that are now categorised as new, such as "Before the Moon Eclipses" and "If the Paddy Fields were the Resting Place for the Moon". All these works are the result of natural spontaneous expression. Frans does not like to force the creative process. That is why he likes to use the abstract form as the expression of his moral struggle.

When his family moved to Bali in the early 1970s, abstract painting was not widely accepted in the artistic community. Bali was still dominated by culturally entrenched expressions of art, such as Legong dancing, ceremonial activities, terraced ricefields, and so on.

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