A short ten-minutes-drive away from the city-centre and its icons of recent glory lies hidden a different Brunei, one still unscathed by the concrete and the glitter. Tucked away between the Markucing hills and the Kota Batu range the Subok valley could easily be 500 hundred years away. But for a narrow strip of tar that wiggles from one end of the valley to the other for approximately 10 km, along which a few colourful kampongs are strewn, the vegetation remains dense on both slopes and many of the houses are in the long-house style so typical of these parts. Surprisingly, Subok has escaped the construction boom of the 80’s and 90’s which has littered most of the land stretching north from the city to the coast with an abundance of sophisticated condominiums and luxury row-houses, and has therefore managed to preserve much of its raw tropical charm.
Belimbing is the malay word for star, and Kampong Belimbing is our village. It is here that my wife and I have chosen to live with our two daughters, intentionally away from expatriate prime locations and closer to nature and the rhythm of the locals – time measured by the call of the muezzin to prayer and by meals that bring the family together. Away from the main road and accessed by a dirt track and a rickety bridge over the Subok, a deceitfully peaceful brook at this point, our landlord explains how the house was built according to the principles of Feng Shui and blessed by the local Christian priest and as he hands over the keys we are pleased to hear that this is the wind-catchment area, one of those few places in The Land Below The Wind where a breeze sometimes blows.
You can’t see them anymore, all physical trace of their existence has been removed or engulfed by the jungle that creeps-up on everything it is allowed to, but I’ll let you know that it was here in Subok that the Japanese set-up their prisoner camps in Brunei. There is no rearranging of energy, no blessing or sufficient calls to prayer capable of dispelling the heaviness that breathes down upon you when the wind subsides and the spirits of what went on around these parts are set free. [But it’s too soon to tell of these things, I still didn’t know about them at this stage. In the early days I just kept away from the heat and made the best of the moments that preceded and followed the tropical downpours.]
I set up my studio under the car-port, a shaded space, open on two sides. From a wicker chair placed in one corner I could feel the Brunei river flowing to the south beyond the jagged ridge of Kota Batu, and to the west and north I was surrounded by the jungle that rolled down the Markucing hills into the garden. It was a magical place, so overwhelming that it took time adjusting to. For months on end all I could do was sit there listening to the rustling of the leaves, the sounds of insects and birds, waiting quietly and motionless in the hope that some monkey or wilder creature wandered closer to my field of vision – in the very early hours of the morning the bolder monkeys usually bathed in the pool. In our post-box there lived a baby monitor lizard, and I would have to remain particularly still if I wanted to catch the blue and gold-feathered bird that occasionally flew out of the thicket, across the valley and back, stopping at various trees along it's way to steal the eggs of smaller birds from their nests.
When inspiration gets overwhelming it leaves me close to stunned, unable to pass things on to the canvas. At these times I prefer to enjoy the ride and brood about what stirs up inside me, digesting it and writing notes about possible directions in a notebook I always carry around with me. In those first few months I applied myself to getting the studio ready for work, conditioning the ground with rattan carpets bought at the local market, setting up easels and extra shading for the paints and brushes I would be leaving outside throughout the next four years. The heat and the humidity were constant and the paintings too were left outside, far from the warping effects of air-conditioning. I focused on finding my bearings in these new surroundings and deciding what I was meant to do from among the many ideas that assailed me. One thing I did establish clearly from the start: I did not wish my Borneo work to revolve around the obvious theme of Magellan - the rain and the heat had much more interesting tales to tell.
Belimbing is the malay word for star, and Kampong Belimbing is our village. It is here that my wife and I have chosen to live with our two daughters, intentionally away from expatriate prime locations and closer to nature and the rhythm of the locals – time measured by the call of the muezzin to prayer and by meals that bring the family together. Away from the main road and accessed by a dirt track and a rickety bridge over the Subok, a deceitfully peaceful brook at this point, our landlord explains how the house was built according to the principles of Feng Shui and blessed by the local Christian priest and as he hands over the keys we are pleased to hear that this is the wind-catchment area, one of those few places in The Land Below The Wind where a breeze sometimes blows.
You can’t see them anymore, all physical trace of their existence has been removed or engulfed by the jungle that creeps-up on everything it is allowed to, but I’ll let you know that it was here in Subok that the Japanese set-up their prisoner camps in Brunei. There is no rearranging of energy, no blessing or sufficient calls to prayer capable of dispelling the heaviness that breathes down upon you when the wind subsides and the spirits of what went on around these parts are set free. [But it’s too soon to tell of these things, I still didn’t know about them at this stage. In the early days I just kept away from the heat and made the best of the moments that preceded and followed the tropical downpours.]
I set up my studio under the car-port, a shaded space, open on two sides. From a wicker chair placed in one corner I could feel the Brunei river flowing to the south beyond the jagged ridge of Kota Batu, and to the west and north I was surrounded by the jungle that rolled down the Markucing hills into the garden. It was a magical place, so overwhelming that it took time adjusting to. For months on end all I could do was sit there listening to the rustling of the leaves, the sounds of insects and birds, waiting quietly and motionless in the hope that some monkey or wilder creature wandered closer to my field of vision – in the very early hours of the morning the bolder monkeys usually bathed in the pool. In our post-box there lived a baby monitor lizard, and I would have to remain particularly still if I wanted to catch the blue and gold-feathered bird that occasionally flew out of the thicket, across the valley and back, stopping at various trees along it's way to steal the eggs of smaller birds from their nests.
When inspiration gets overwhelming it leaves me close to stunned, unable to pass things on to the canvas. At these times I prefer to enjoy the ride and brood about what stirs up inside me, digesting it and writing notes about possible directions in a notebook I always carry around with me. In those first few months I applied myself to getting the studio ready for work, conditioning the ground with rattan carpets bought at the local market, setting up easels and extra shading for the paints and brushes I would be leaving outside throughout the next four years. The heat and the humidity were constant and the paintings too were left outside, far from the warping effects of air-conditioning. I focused on finding my bearings in these new surroundings and deciding what I was meant to do from among the many ideas that assailed me. One thing I did establish clearly from the start: I did not wish my Borneo work to revolve around the obvious theme of Magellan - the rain and the heat had much more interesting tales to tell.
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