The Diary of R.S.:
Musings on Art

“Laksmi Pamuntjak’s book, a collection of highly personal engagements with certain paintings, aims to go beyond the quick look, as her texts have grown out of a gentle, unhurried absorption. These are pictures that, in more than a few instances, have possessed her for years … But the products of these carefully crafted improvisations demonstrate all the vehement passions that art history has to offer. While “absorption” is an apt word to describe the tone and tenor of most of these texts, “unhurried” certainly doesn’t always apply to the rhythms of the worlds she has imagined from the works of, say, Salvador Dali or Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Such worlds are peopled with too much yearning for that adjective. There is urgency in the lives that have come forth from out of these pictures … (and) much tenderness which could serve as an emblem for the whole collection.” - Lee Weng Choy, art critic, president of the Singapore section of the International Association of Art Critics