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“Perempuan sedang merokok (A Woman Smoking)” by Siti Ruliyati (Indonesian) - Oil on canvas / 2005 - Museum Universitas Pelita Harapan (Tangerang, Banten) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #SitiRuliyati #Ruliyati #MuseumUPH #artText #BlueskyArt #IndonesianArtist #WomenPaintingWomen
Painted late in Indonesian artist Siti Ruliyati’s long career, this canvas sits within the shift she made after moving to Jakarta in 1979 to support her family through embroidery and hand-painted goods while also teaching painting to women from many professions and exhibiting with her students. Where her earlier decades often tracked markets, fields, and village life, here she turns her attention to a quieter, middle-to-upper-class interior with coffee, flowers, leisure, and a woman who occupies the frame without apology. She presents an adult woman in crisp profile at a table, her gaze directed away from ours as if focused on something to our right. Her skin is painted in warm peach tones. Auburn curls gather at the back of her head with loose ringlets at the temple. She wears a white, short-sleeved blouse and simple jewelry including a long strand of green beads, a matching bracelet, and small earrings. One hand lifts toward her neck, holding a long cigarette between two fingers as a pale ribbon of smoke drifts away. In front of her, a cup and saucer sit beside a small brown snack. To the right, a vase of bright red, purple, and yellow flowers spills color onto the tabletop. Behind her, broad palm fronds and mottled greenery form a dense backdrop, while a slanted band of light cuts diagonally through the upper corner. The brushwork stays visibly textured, with flattened shapes and confident color blocks that make the room feel both intimate and slightly theatrical. The cigarette can be read less as a vice than as a gesture of autonomy like an outward sign of pause, appetite, and self-possession … especially in a portrait tradition that so often asks women to appear pleasing rather than purposeful. Ruliyati’s angled profile denies easy access to the sitter’s full expression, yet the painted smoke, the alert posture, and the bright floral counterpoint suggest a life in motion with private thoughts, public rules, and the small freedoms negotiated in between.
December 19, 2025 at 2:30 AM