Auke Cornelius Sonnega (1910 – 1963) was a Dutch painter who spent much of his life working in Bali. After working as a textile designer on the island of Java, Sonnega moved to Bali before the outbreak of the Second World War, eventually dedicating himself to painting after starting out as a newspaper travel writer.
Auke Sonnega’s southeast asian art style reflected his background as a designer and the Art Deco movement of the time, and his works often have a mystical sensation about them. In 1951, he experienced spiritual visions as the result of conversations with his comrade Husein Rofe, which led to a heightened emotional presence in his work going forward. He was a prolific portrait painter, creating highly stylized colorful depictions with strong outlines. His favorite subjects included dancers and young men and women participating in various activities.
"This inner change would bring about significant changes in my professional life, through a heightened emotional awareness which would affect the quality and subject of my painting. After eight years, I am in a position to testify that this did in fact come about. Especially from 1954-56, I was aware of considerable progress in the domination of abstract motifs, and their concrete portrayal. My technique and understanding of the fourth dimension improved. I thus discovered that my aesthetic emotions had always been stimulated by a subtle perceptive faculty, which it had never occurred to me previously to qualify as clairvoyance. And yet I prefer to avoid such mystical terms as too often they serve to refer to illusions, as smoke without fire."
-Auke Sonnega, on his spiritual awakening
