3
— Detail of Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Elite Measuring Set
opposite page
current page
— Detail of Ghost Painting (Invisible / Woven Deconstructed Basahan Retaso Rug Category): Still Life Using Black Plastic Mesh Set
A Reader
Why do you work with the materials you work with? Like tarp, scrap fabric? Are local materials essential for your practice? It’s about adaptive re-use. It has to do with the precarity of my situation. In art school, although I was on a full-tuition scholarship, I had to work to pay for everything else and I never really had money to buy oil paints, so I’d go to Home Depot in the Bay Area in San Francisco, California to buy gallons of paint that were rejected by customers. That’s also why I also love doing ephemeral performativebased works in and out of the white cube space. So, fast forward to the present, when I moved back to the Philippines, I was in the same situation, so I just started using what was around my immediate environment. Culturally, I understood the importance of adaptive re-use that is rooted in the Philippines. It’s not about recycling. When I first saw Marcel Duchamp’s seminal 1951 Bicycle Wheel in Centre Pompidou when I was eighteen in Paris, it made me reflect on the notion of adaptive re-use. In turn,
5
2020
it made me realize how potent it is aesthetically, and it made me proud that the culture that I was born into inherently has it as part of it’s DNA. Ukay-ukay or dole-out used clothes is a big part of adaptive re-use culture in the Philippines, donated clothes and objects from Europe, the USA, South Korea, or Japan that were intended to be given to (what the West deems as) third world countries. This has become a big part of the retail market system in the country. I actually buy most of my t-shirts there. Tarpaulins are part of both the urban and rural landscapes in the Philippines. While it’s true that most Southeast Asian countries use it extensively as well, but it in the Philippines is incredibly pervasive. The basahan retaso rugs are a staple household item in most Filipino homes. It can be bought in most department stores and markets. Much like the tarpaulin or the ukay-ukay, it has found its way into mainstream Filipino culture. Living with these materials, they are part of my works because,
BASAHAN: A Reader
in a way, it-was-just-there. It’s not about pop art.
6
You explore different facets of how the basahan retaso rugs can be aesthetically presented, how did this come about? Instead of only focusing on an iterative process of the basahan retaso rugs as an image for the cracked
2020
tarpaulin paintings, inversely, I also use it as a structural component to which the transparent painting medium in the new series Invisible Paintings. It’s a material that’s readily available to me where I am right now. So, in a way, as I mentioned, “it was just there,” and that’s why I use it. That’s the ingenuity of adaptive re-use. It’s not about recycling, it’s about the possibility of the material itself.
What is more significant in your practice, theory, or materiality? To create something, whether artistic or otherwise, should be a wholistic endeavor, even though you might not be conscious about it, or prioritize certain aspects of the process. The practice is both theory and material. They are not independent of each other. My own understanding of theory in relation to my own practice is not limited to simply positioning myself within a linear art historical framing, although it is inevitable that the notion of global art practice is centered in this tradition. Still, living, working, being born into a culture like the Philippines, I situate myself both in terms of
BASAHAN: A Reader
material and theoretical within multiple permeable
8
agendas, less to do with comparative analogies, more to do with raising questions about both these two signifiers.
How does one even come up with non-Western ideological thought? Are there any Filipino philosophers or contemporary theorists that are contributing to this space? That’s a complicated question. I am afraid it would take more than a few words, but a lengthy discussion. First, artists are aesthetic theorists. Most are not necessarily able to use words to express this facet, but we don’t need to write. The notion of ideological thought nowadays is not so much whether it’s Western or non-Western. This binary, better yet, this rhizomatic approach is not necessarily a methodology I’d use to create a platform by which to explore the theoretical framework I create. We don’t live in a simple binary nowadays. The complexity of experience is filtered through the first-person perspective, and not necessarily mediated through the traditional channels of how we defined culture before. Yet, for me, the basis of my own aesthetic research is inductive, not deductive. It’s important because I don’t want to first do a comparative analysis to establish modes of thought, instead, from observation, empirical “data,” in this case, experimenting heavily with the material. This also allows me to pay close attention and listen to the subtle nuances of how aesthetic experience is played out in the Philippines. It’s not authenticity; instead, it is about originality.
9
10
BASAHAN: A Reader
2020
Authenticity is about inclusivity versus exclusivity, Western or non-Western. Originality is about the uniqueness of the experience, the hybrid combo that may produce novelty. Our subjectivities are essential. I am not saying it’s about individualism. It’s about the awareness that each person can tap into something in a non-linear perspective, nonrhizomatic, but permeable like an amoeba.
Why do you choose to crack your paintings? Why not other forms of distress? It took me a few years, technically, to find just the right kind of paints, the formula, and the surface to come up with this cracking technique. I never really sought out to crack them. Like most of my work, it was a serendipitous moment. I was transporting my paintings, and they cracked because of the quality of the paint and the poor way of packing them. At that time, I was already starting to be very much
Philippines. I am not a “research-based artist” in that post-conceptual tradition. I think research is integral to art practice. I wanted to find an aesthetic methodology that would embody certain physical aspects, as well as ideological, that would connect to the tropical in the Philippines. That’s why I work with perfume, with the idea of
opposite page
in tropicality and the cultural nuances of the
— Detail of uncracked painting
engaged in finding a connection between my research
11
2020
invisibility in painting and, of course, this idea of cracking.
What is the importance of the narrative structure in your artworks? There is a big part of me who fantasizes and wishes I was a filmmaker. A filmmaker that only uses a 35mm lens. No tricks, just visual simplicity scaled down to the human perceptive experience. I think this is technically important because it immediately grounds the work in the moment. Although the painting is always made in the past, this allows the viewer to still be in the present while experiencing the painting. There is no past that needs to be deciphered. The most significant influence in my creative life is film. For me, my paintings are movies. Movies that have no temporal origin, and the narrative structure falls on the burden of the viewer. The artwork achieves this by seducing us to visually feel. The formal elements captivate us. Perhaps that is also why I love playing with scale, patterns, the psychology of images that can be deciphered and lost in translation. When the artworks
BASAHAN: A Reader
are finished, I find myself relinquished from my role
12
as a creator. The artworks immediately dictate that I become a viewer like anyone else. Although I know what images lie underneath, the reality is that memory becomes unreliable the moment I cease to remember.
More than a month ago, I bought a book called “The Beauty of Everyday things� by Soetsu Yanagi. The way he writes his observations of banal sophistication made me realize that as a creator, you need to build a solid narrative structure, and I feel it is akin to why I make paintings. Often we think of timelessness as an inherent quality related to the material nature of a creative endeavor, but what suffices is the power of seduction that all the elements that make up an artwork have to poetically weave into a narrative that will allow us, in whatever context-spatial or temporal, too -desirebeyond that which has been made real. That is why in the end, before you leave the painting, the title- the subject matter at hand, becomes secondary and not a dictum but a mirror to which the viewer cannot act and breakthrough. The act of creating a thematic-subject becomes an opportunity to test our perceptual maturity.
Your work since moving back to the Philippines, is it about cultural reproduction of symbols, or are you aiming at producing new aesthetic/ symbols for the Philippines and the tropics? To claim a national identity as an artist is limiting and insular. My identity is more complex than that. I am not interested in nationalism and other postcolonial identity binaries. We never expect that from
13
2020
Western-centric artists, why should we expect that an artist like me? Precisely because of my complex experience and identity, I am confident in exploring the notion of tropicality based on observations and formulations in Philippine life because they are part of my everyday experiences, not because there is a nationalistic agenda behind it. My exploration starts from my own observations, a first-person perspective. The idea of the tropical is more than the Philippines because it permeates a much broader scope of study. It’s not a matter of having a utopian experience. As I mentioned twice before, it’s a matter of subjectivity of experiences that permeate, not necessarily in a rhizomatic pattern, but freeassociation.
As an artist, are you conscious of connecting or positioning your work within an art historical context? We have to be more specific with the notion of the art history you are referring to. It points to Western art. Global contemporary art is measured by the standard of Western art history. Yes, I am aware of
BASAHAN: A Reader
it, and it is part of the set of knowledge that I
14
bring into my own practice. But also, I am in part, coming from Europe and it is part of my experience. Why am I explicit about this? Because Western art history did not only come to me as part of a course
15
current page, top & bottom
— Detail of retaso weaving
2020
in school, I had to be aware of it. It was, well, is part of my life living in Europe too. So it’s a piece of experiential knowledge. Because of this, I am aware and critical of it. But I do not necessarily position my practice within its framework because I do not think my Filipino cultural heritage is significantly better or worst. It’s not about that. It’s about the potential of aesthetics to create and innovate, and my aesthetic-centric everyday life in the Philippines feeds into my own work and ideology. It has to because it’s part of me. To understand is not enough. To empathize is much better because it is not only an intellectual endeavor but an affective one.
You don’t only use the Basahan retaso rugs as a visual component of your paintings, you literally use it as a structure in your paintings when you create your -Invisible Painting- series. How does this work? What should we see? Better yet, what aren’t we seeing? What is painting? How is it a painting? Why is it a painting? Painting has a long and tradition in Western art history. We have movements and stylistic
BASAHAN: A Reader
periods that have defined this medium. For me, I
16
wanted to situate my critical experiment on the formal aspects of what, how, and why painting is a painting. I believe in innovating within these physical parameters. A paradox, really, when you
think about the notion of invisibility. Well, perhaps, it’s kinda stupid? Perhaps it’s actually relatively easy to understand. Think about it, when look at a painting, one of the primary traditional component of it is —color. We see color. We experience color. Color defines imagemaking in painting. But what if we didn’t see color in a painting, will it still be considered painting? Well, if you twist it further, is color something you necessarily “see” in that traditional sense? What happens to transparency or the none-presence of color? What happens if the binding agent to which the pigments of color we bound to, are to be used to paint; will it still be painting? We have to challenge the formal notion of painting. Well, as an artist, I think that’s one of the primary functions we have as artists living in the time we belong to.
What is the underlying idea with the Invisible Painting series? It’s kinda tricky, isn’t it? I mean, it’s like the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, wherein the mind of the emperor he was fully clothed, but to the eyes of the public, he was completely naked. Perhaps it should be understood like that? Exploration in painting should not only take place within the pictorial plane but in the materiality of how we
17
2020
define paint itself. We take it for granted. We are so used to thinking of paint in terms of color that we forget that color as a material is pigment bonding with each through a particular medium. Thus, color allows the obvious —visuality of experience. That’s exactly what I am questioning and experimenting with in terms of breaking away from a pictorial tradition of painting. For this series, I want to explore different surface structures by which I can paint invisibly. I am already planning to go back to doing graffiti. Imagine doing invisible graffiti? It would be an oxymoron, wouldn’t it? The very nature of graffiti is to be as visible as possible, and it is very first-person centric, meaning the subject itself is centered towards the one making it. An invisible graffiti will allow you to see past the layer of acrylic emulsion and see the surface on which it is painted on. So, in a way, it doesn’t efface it image-wise. For this iteration in the art fair, the structure that I explore is about the woven deconstructed basahan retaso rugs. It’s kinda misleading because immediately, the viewer will never associate it with
BASAHAN: A Reader
painting. It’s not merely a sculpture/installation.
18
That would be too easy and expected. Definitely don’t consider it “textile art” just because of the apparent base material. It’s a painting without pigment, so what you see is the base structure on
which the medium sits on, in this case, the fabric itself. This allows the underlying layer to be seen and still be the visual protagonist.
19
— Detail opposite page
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Macho Dancer (Version 1) painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 213 x 300.5 cms 2020
21
2020 Works
22
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Elite Measuring Set painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 119.5 x 87 cms 2020
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Fiesta Three Cheese Spaghetti painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 90 x 60 cms 2020
23
24
Works
2020
— Detail opposite page
Invisible Painting (Woven Deconstructed Basahan Retaso Rug Category): Corals painting (acrylic emulsion on woven deconstructed retaso rugs) 200 cms (size, variable [can be reconfigured according to exhibition space]) 2020
25
2020 Works
26
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Back to School painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 90 x 60 cms 2020
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): 6-Piece Chicken Joy Bucket painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 90 x 60 cms 2020
27
2020 Works
28
Ghost Painting (Invisible / Woven Deconstructed Basahan Retaso Rug Category): Still Life Using Black Plastic Mesh painting (acrylic emulsion on woven deconstructed retaso rugs) 37 x 82 x 85 cms 2020
Ghost Painting (Invisible / Woven Deconstructed Basahan Retaso Rug Category): Still Life Using Black Plastic Fan painting (acrylic emulsion on woven deconstructed retaso rugs) 67 x 88 x 8 cms 2020
29
2020 Works
30
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Erasing White Board Marker painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 90 x 60 cms 2020
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Flex Finance painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 90 x 60 cms 2020
31
32
Works
2020
— Detail opposite page, top
— Retaso rug opposite page, bottom
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Annie’s Nangka painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 90 x 60 cms 2020
33
2020 Works
34
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): (painting will incorporate the name of the first collector) painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 240 x 160 cms 2020
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Bacolod-Bago GRINDR Profile Texts (Version 2) painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 180 x 151 cms 2020
35
2020 Works
36
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Portrait of Bebe (Version 1) painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 213 x 301 cms 2020
2020 Works
38
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Car Loan painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 90 x 60 cms 2020
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Lucky Me Mami Spareribs painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 180 x 151 cms 2020
39
2020 Works
40
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Portrait of an Unknown Graduate from Dumaguete painting (acrylic on woven PVC fiber) 239 x 211 cms 2018
Ghost Painting (Cracked Category): Untitled (Knitted Red / Orange / Green Knitted Painting) painting (acrylic on crocheted fabric) 276 x 224 x 3 cms 2018
41
2020 Works
42
Ghost Painting (Invisible / Woven Deconstructed Basahan Retaso Rug Category): Rolyo Pouf (Version #1) painting (acrylic emulsion on woven deconstructed retaso rugs) and low seat furniture 3 pieces (8 rugs per roll) (rug: 35 x 56 x 1.5 cms) (roll: 18 x 30 cms diameter) 2019
Ghost Painting (Toldo Category): Authority 1 (mixed media, painting on textile) 200 x 307 cms 2016
43
Tropical Futures Institute 856G Gallery 856 A.S. Fortuna Street, Banilad Mandaue 6014 Philippines info@tropicalfutures.institute