Batari, a goddess drawn from the Asmat
Batari means "goddess" in Indonesian, and the woman I painted under that name belongs to the Asmat, a people living deep in the swamplands and river systems of southwestern Papua, on the island of New Guinea. It is one of the more remote cultures to have shaped a print of mine, and one I found through research rather than a personal visit.
The Asmat are known above all for woodcarving. Carvers, called wowipits, hold a respected position in Asmat society, and their work traces back to Fumeripits, a cultural ancestor credited as the first carver and, in Asmat belief, an early figure in the shaping of humanity itself. Carving is not decoration for its own sake here. Elaborately worked poles, drums, shields and masks are made to honor ancestors and keep their memory present among the living, an art form built around continuity rather than display.
That emphasis on ancestry and percussion found its way directly into Batari. In the illustration, a hand-carved wooden drum sits at the center of the composition, its beat imagined as something that reaches back to far older times. A tall feathered headdress crowns the figure, a mark of spiritual standing rather than simple ornament.
I made this illustration as a deliberate choice about who gets centered in a story. Asmat society is traditionally organized around men in its most visible ceremonial roles, and women's positions within it are less publicly asserted. Painting Batari as a powerful woman from this world was my way of giving that role a presence it does not always have in the historical record, an act of artistic imagination rather than a documentary claim about Asmat society today.
As with every print I draw from a culture I have not lived inside myself, Batari is offered as homage and interpretation, not ethnography. The drum, the headdress, the palette are my choices, filtered through watercolor, ink and pencil, in tribute to a carving tradition that has endured for generations along New Guinea's river system.
With love, Brescia
