The pair of dancers takes centrestage, flanked by the gamelan musicians on the right, and the spectators on the left. The comparatively obscure artist, Otto Djaya, was given a belated Retrospective by the Indonesian National Gallery in Jakarta in October this year. Kuala Lumpur-based Danish art curator Inge-Marie Holst who with her husband Hans Peter Holst collected lot of Otto’s works, 172 of which were shown in the retrospective, was reported to have said: “Otto had a colourful and humorous style… He was often critical of the government during times when it was difficult to be so, when people went to prison for speaking their mind.” Born in Rangkasbitung, Bantung, Otto learned painting at the Persagi atelier, headed by his elder brother Agus. He was trained as a soldier with the ranking of ‘Major’ and was injured in the fight for Independence. He studied at the Rijks Academy in Amsterdam in 1947-50 together with Agus, and was accepted to the Grand Prix de Peinture de Monaco in Monte Carlo and the Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil.