Where Bali Makes Its Art
A VILLAGE-BY-VILLAGE GUIDE TO DISCOVERING ART AROUND UBUD
A private Ubud Discovery Tour from COMO Uma Ubud offers a way into the Gianyar region's living cultural landscape.
Bali’s Gianyar region, where Ubud is located, has long been a centre of exceptional craftsmanship, with art, religion and political power deeply intertwined. Artistic practice remains embedded in daily cultural life, with painting, wood and stone carving, silverwork, dance and gamelan concentrated in particular villages, each known for its own specialism.
From COMO Uma Ubud, much of this territory is within reach. The private, guide-led Ubud Discovery Tour can be tailored around individual interests over three or five hours — whether painting, performance, craftsmanship or contemporary creativity. Here are some places to begin.
Museum Puri Lukisan, ARMA and Neka Art Museum
Museums
Ubud’s three major museums provide useful context before venturing further afield. Museum Puri Lukisan traces the emergence of modern Balinese painting and the island’s distinct regional schools; ARMA holds Walter Spies’ Calonarang (1930) and maintains a strong performance programme; while Neka Art Museum explores how Balinese artists absorbed, resisted and reformulated outside influences across the twentieth century.
Miniatures
Keliki
20 minutes north of Ubud, Keliki is set among rice terraces and packed with studios known for producing intricately detailed paintings often no larger than a notebook page. Village scenes, mythology, temples and rice fields are rendered in lines so fine they sometimes require magnification to appreciate fully. Guests can meet local artists and enjoy close-up encounters with their work, as well as exploring the surrounding landscape.
Wood-Carving
Mas
For generations, artisans in Mas — 30 minutes south of Ubud — have carved deities, dancers and mythological figures from teak, ebony and crocodile wood. A workshop visit reveals the labour behind each piece, from timber selection and rough shaping to fine carving and finishing — skills often handed down within the same family.
Silver and Gold
Celuk
Located an hour’s drive from COMO Uma Ubud, Celuk is Bali’s best-known centre for silver and goldwork. Family workshops still practise filigree, hand engraving and granulation entirely by hand, producing ceremonial pieces alongside contemporary jewellery. Guests can visit workshops and showrooms, as well as learn traditional techniques from the artisans.
Classical Painting
Batuan
45 minutes south of Ubud, Batuan has developed one of Bali’s most distinctive painting traditions. Dark, dense compositions depict ceremonies, village life, myth and supernatural beings, with little empty space. The style emerged during the same 20th-century artistic flowering as Ubud’s, but retained a notably different, more intense visual language. Guests can visit traditional painting compounds, learning about symbolic storytelling in Balinese art.
Stone Carving
Batubulan
Batubulan is associated with the volcanic-stone figures that populate Bali’s temples: guardians, demons and deities hand-carved in roadside workshops. An hour’s drive from COMO Uma Ubud, the village is also known for its evening Barong performances, which bring Bali’s mythological world to life through displays of the battle between opposing forces of good and evil.
Dance and Gamelan
Peliatan and Singapadu
A 30-minute drive from COMO Uma Ubud, the villages of Peliatan and Singapadu are part of Bali’s royal performance tradition. Peliatan's Legong dancers have performed internationally since the 1930s, while performers still train from childhood in Singapadu. Access to rehearsals, gamelan workshops and temple ceremonies can be arranged in both villages.
The Art Market
Sukawati
45 minutes south of Ubud, Sukawati is one of Bali’s longstanding trading centres for paintings, textiles, carvings and ceremonial objects. Work from across Gianyar converges here before moving on to private homes, temples and galleries. The market is open to visitors seven days a week, from 6.00am to 6.00pm.
For more information on the Ubud Discovery Tour, please contact COMO Uma Ubud via [email protected].
