The Works of Peter Eglington
Indonesian Afternoon
Throughout the nineteen seventies, the vast majority of reefs now surfed
in Indonesia still awaited discovery.
The greatest ocean adventurers of all time, the early Polynesians, must
have experienced a joy and ecstasy few will ever know now, upon their discovery
of the previously unknown islands of the Pacific, over a thousand years
ago.
In some microcosmic way, during the last 3 decades of the Twentieth
Century, young adventurous and pioneering spirits from the western world
were about to seek out and find perfect waves in the largely unexplored
new wave frontiers of the Indonesian islands.
Perhaps even now, in the farther reaches of this amazing archipelago,
there still remain undiscovered reef breaks awaiting the hoots of the young
at heart.
The islands of Java and Sumatra were the first to see the arrival of
surfers travelling overland in the hope of finding perfect virgin reefs.
Fascinated by Indonesian culture with its hundreds of sub-cultures, I joined
many others disregarding the hardships of overland travel and answered
the call of the islands to the west of Bali. This was not easy travelling
by any means!
The southern coastline of Java has many beautiful bays and inlets. I
was fortunate enough to travel to a superb area which had a striking resemblance
to the beach of Kuta. However, unlike Kuta Beach which at that time was
still largely visited only by the overland hippy travellers, there were
no other Europeans for hundreds of miles.
This painting is based on a lasting image I have of this special place.
As my girlfriend and I walked home from the reef one afternoon, we encountered
the ever present Javanese fishermen , serenely absorbed in the beauty of
an Indonesian afternoon.
This painting is available
as a poster.
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