Wayan Pendet
Painter and Sculptor

Wayan Pendet is a painter and sculptor who was born in Nyuh Kuning Village, Ubud, in 1936 and passed away in 1998. During his life, he produced a lot of paintings and statues, which can now can be seen at Pendet Museum, in Nyuh Kuning Village, 2 km to the south of Ubud. The paintings and statues of Wayan Pendet were cartoon influenced, which was original for his age.
His statues are very expressive, and Wayan showed originlity in choosing the natural wood colour as the base element for his work, as this was a different style from other sculptors. At that time, most of the sculptors tried to carve the wood very smoothly, and make the object look as real as possible. They also stuck to the carving theory of the time which was, for example, if you wanted to make a garuda (kind of big bird) statue, then the head part of the garuda should have the face on the front, and both of its wings extended stiffly. For Wayan Pendet, that kind of style and shape meant boring things. Then later on, he produced a garuda statue with the head that looked to the other parts, with the wings more relaxed. He became more weird, funny and unique, and it become very interesting, because it differed from other.
During his life, Wayan Pendet was very intimate with Rudolf Bonnet, a Dutch painter, who was also really concerned with the art society of Ubud and surrounding areas. From there, the art instincts of Wayan Pendet were forever developing.
On Thursday, 26 December 2002, Gianyar Regent, Tjokorde Budi Suryawan, opened Museum Pendet. The museum that is located about 2 km from Ubud, houses 80 statues and 29 paintings of the late Wayan Pendet. (Gung Man)