SNUFF — Argie Bandoy

SNUFF

new paintings by ARGIE BANDOY

SNUFF new paintings by ARGIE BANDOY March 2011

The Stinger Oil on canvas 183 x 243.84 cm 2011

Games painters play and other cerebral activities

Masi Solano

It is difficult to imagine the mind of an abstractionist in the process of painting, a state of non-being, beyond visual, outside ordinary space and time.

Anything said about these paintings thus, and everything written here about them, is mere speculation and more bull. But that wouldn’t stop anyone from making playful conjectures, just as the artist joyfully toyed with its realization. Supposing that whatever it was that the painter wanted to paint cannot be found in these paintings, what are they then? There are various points of attack and ways of approaching this question, but for most parts we would do well in talking about anything else but the paintings themselves. A painting, after all, is only a piece of a larger story.

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We can attempt to understand by looking at the practical process: The painter had an idea of a painting he wanted to see and painted it. He hated it and ended up painting something else. He liked this new version, found it interesting, played and tinkered with it and decided, to hell with the pure and original idea. From conception to execution many things were lost and abandoned, but a lot of surprises showed up as well. He then destroyed and stripped it bare, cut it up, and began again. Ordinarily, such is the process of painting. In most cases, the painter had to rely on accidents and last-minute genius guesses. In the act of painting, insights and triumphs were attained, dread and horror were entertained. There was pain and there was pleasure. Every time the painter painted a painting, there was usually some sort of revelation, but just as soon as it came, it vanished (and in its wake left even more questions). Only the painter knew exactly what transpired, and the full experience of it is his and his alone, and he is its sole witness.

We can ask, who is the painter? Argie Bandoy. And dig into a little bit of personal history all the way to the 90s, the dawn of the electronic age1 and the rise of the global village. As the artist recalls: It was interesting times during the 90s. A lot of my friends in high school were into mobile and spinning, and were mostly into new wave Britpop, which I wasn’t into. I was more attracted to raw and free spirit attitude. I met new friends

To look at a painting, we don’t have to just look at it but also feel the sensuality of materials and gestures, mull over its content, make a parallel comparison to the artist. It is only then that we can make sense out of it.

We have to know a bit about its maker somehow. If not, there is no point of reference.

and we started a band. We played punk hardcore, noise, death metal, and experimented a lot. It was a relief from the geeky gayness of the 80s. At first, I didn’t like grunge because it was so popular, but I sensed the return of the early 80s underground with it. The Melvins were already quite a cult by that time. Experimentation, the Beat Boys, Americana hardcore, surf trash, garage, new age philosophy are all part of my early influences.

Argie Bandoy

SNUFF

We can inquire about the title of the exhibit: SNUFF.

new paintings by ARGIE BANDOY

According to the artist, this refers to the taboo and conventions of Painting as well as the acceptance of its limits. What is Painting? Is a question he never tires of.

The artist acknowledges that there is little that is taboo (if there is any left) when it comes to painting. By this century, everything that can be done in painting has already been done or attempted in terms of form and content.

The possibilities of exploration and re-combinations are endless, however, and the more one probes, the more the mystery unfolds and widens.

March 2011

Another approach, albeit superficially, is to make general assumptions about the look and feel of the paintings. We can say that they are somewhat existentialist, anarchist, industrialist, minimalist, abstract expressionist, and so on, associating them with various isms and genres. We can say that they appear to be either in the process of construction or of destruction. They also seem to have a subtle and elegant quality, possessing balance and harmony, complete and whole in a deeper sense.

If we ask the artist, he’d say that our guesses are not entirely without basis. He grew up in Valenzuela City where there were a lot of big factory walls around. He did a lot of graffiti then, wrote a lot about the streets, urban legends, and the inner city ghettoes. We can see traces of these in his works--the romance in ruins and the poetry in urban decay.

Then there are the familiar symbols such as a skull and a set of teeth which point to death and mortality, but an abstractionist, especially of this type, is usually more clever and imaginative than that, and rarely give things away too easily. A quick scan of the paintings’ titles will convince us that this painter is some kind of a clever joker, someone who revels in puns, relishes mind games, word plays and riddles.

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top right Enduring Condition of Unrecognizable Act Oil, beeswax, reflectorised signage mounted on canvas 183 x 152.4 cm / 2011 below left The Stinger / Oil on canvas / 183 x 243.84 cm / 2011 below right Knit / Knat / Oil, beeswax, enamel, spray paint on canvas 183 x 152.4 cm / 2011

What is it that we want to get out of looking at a painting? Do we wish to know the painter’s mind?

Cognitive scientists today are slowly exorcising the ghost in the machine with the help of brain scanning technologies like functional MRI. Every aspect of consciousness can now be tied to the brain, or so they claim. By mapping the brain’s blood flow, they can tell whether one is looking at a place or a face, a bottle or a shoe, technically knowing what one is thinking in silence. But even they won’t deny that much of it is still shrouded in obscurity.2 For all of its life, the brain sits in darkness and silence inside the vault of the skull. Electrical signals enter and exit along the super-highway of nerve bundles, processing sensory information and forming neural architectures to construct the best story it can about the outside world. The conscious mind, the part that we think we are, is only the smallest part of what is really happening in the brain, and usually the last in line to find out any information.3 It often insists on being logical and practical, so as to navigate the world faster and more efficiently. As a tool for investigating truths and realities then, the conscious mind is quite unreliable, largely unaware of its own glaring biases.

In this sense, the scientific method of observation is unsophisticated. Before the conscious mind even reaches any conclusion or theory about the world it would have gone through millions of censors, filters, and gates to conform to the mind’s comfort zones and programming. As society speeds up, so does our conscious process, leaving a lot of external information unfelt, and not fully experienced. Pleasure is reduced like slow food to junk food. The mind gets bored easily even in the face of infinite possibilities.

SNUFF

How can we hijack and alter our programming? How do we escape our conscious mind that locks us in an unimaginative assumption?

new paintings by ARGIE BANDOY

Painting has a unique potential to stop time and condense feelings and experience.4 It is certainly a powerful medium for capturing unconscious, subconscious and conscious processes. Many abstract expressionist paintings look a lot like electrical signals, molecular energies, and vibratory impulses--the silent brain expressing its deeper mysteries.

If neuroscientists wish to truly dig deep inside the shell, they might want to look more closely at paintings rather than relying so much on brain imaging scans. Come to think of it, many doctors are art collectors or many art collectors are doctors. Abstract art is probably the closest one can get to seeing the complicated textures of thoughts and the tactile pathways of feelings.

March 2011

Every painting is a unique voyage and exploration. The artist dives into and resurfaces from the depths of the ocean of mind or soars to the heights of illumination and presents us with a small or a big, or a medium-sized idea for our consumption or disposal.5 But he can’t tell us what to do with it, more so how it was and is to be done.

These paintings may offer a clue to the mysterious process of getting from here to there (or the not-there), a crude guide for navigating the unknown territories of the nowhere. One could even look at them as portals, time machines, space ships, or simply signposts, helping us to see what exists in between the gaps of everyday reality.

Only one shouldn’t be caught in the trap of believing them too much for they are only gaps themselves and not the real and actual thing.

Painting is a laborious process that demands the blood and the brain of the painter. The painter is a delusional being6 and secretly believes he might change human beings through painting,7 if not transform his own self. Looking at art demands as much passionate commitment, a participation in a game with no known rules and objectives.

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top right Jump Cut / Oil on canvas / 122 x 122 cm / 2011 right, top row from left Untitled I, Untitled II, Untitled III right, middle row from left Untitled IV, Untitled V right, bottom Untitled VI right all Collage / various sizes / 2010

1 American Cultural History: 1990-1999. Lonestar College Kingwood Online Library <http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade90.html> 2 Pinker, Steven. “The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness”.

Time.com. 2007. Jan. 19, 2007 <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,1580394,00.html> 3 Eagleman, David M. “Brain Time”. Edge.org. 2009. June 24, 2009 <http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/eagleman09/eagleman09_index.html> 4 Scully, Sean. “Interview with Sean Scully”. Journal of Contemporary Art <http://www.jca-online.com/scully.html> 5 McKenna, Terence. “Fishing in the Dark Ocean of Mind” MindofMcKenna.com 1995 <http://mindofmckenna.com/fishing-in-the-dark-ocean-of-mind> 6 Bandoy, Argie. Artist Statement. A discourse on bad taste and guilty pleasures. 2011 <http://theswankstyle.blogspot.com/2010/03/artist statement-argie-bandoy-will-give.html> 7

Richter, Gerhard. “One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is idiocy”. Notes 1973. The Daily Practice of Painting, p. 78

SNUFF new paintings by ARGIE BANDOY March 2011

Untitled / Luxur Oil, acrylic, beeswax on canvas 183 x 213.36 cm / 2011

Argie Bandoy born 1973 Philippines Education University of the East College of Fine Arts Philippines

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Solo exhibitions 2011 Snuff New Paintings

by Argie Bandoy TAKSU Singapore 2010 A Discourse on Bad Taste and Guilty Pleasures Nova Gallery Makati City Philippines 2009 Mucus Humor Magnet Art Gallery Manila Philippines Guts and Gory Pablo Gallery The Fort Manila Philippines 2008 Blindspot MO_Space Gallery Manila Philippines The Simple Beginning of Chaos Finale Art Gallery Manila Philippines 2007 Seasoning the Obese Magnet Gallery Manila Philippines 2006 From Wilderness to Nowhere Finale Art Gallery Manila Philippines 2005 Life Was Almost Perfect Magnet Gallery Manila Philippines 2004 Blasted Esthetics and Exorcism UFO Gallery San Juan Manila Philippines

Selected group exhibitions 2010 Bastards of Misrepresentation Freies Museum Berlin Germany Serial Killers TAKSU Singapore Serial Killers Turbine Hall TATE Modern London UK 2009 The Unnamable Manila Contemporary Makati City Philippines How’s My Painting? MOP GALLERY 1 Sydney NSW Australia Singapore Art Fair Art Forum Singapore 2008 Inaugural Show Part 2 Finale Art File Pasong Tamo Makati City Philippines Room 307: Inkling, Gutfeel, and Hunch National Museum of Philippines Problems with Style In Collaboration with Manuel Ocampo Green Papaya Art Projects Manila Philippines Quarenta Cultural Center of the Philippines Manila Philippines 2007 Pocket Monster Prose Gallery Manila Philippines I Have Nothing to Paint and I’m Painting It MO_Space Manila Philippines Don’t Leave Me Alone Two-men exhibit with Jed Escueta Prose Gallery Manila Philippines Shoot Me (Photographs Now) MO_Space Manila Philippines 2006 Metropolitan Mapping Hong Kong Cultural Centre Hong Kong Postmodernism Is So Last Season Green Papaya Art Projects Manila Philippines Dogshow Green Papaya Art Projects Manila Philippines Backroom Inauguration Show Magnet Gallery Manila Conflict Resolutions Future Prospects Artist Run Gallery Manila Philippines Paint It Black West Gallery Manila Philippines

2005 Failure of a Modern Man Future Prospects Artist Run Gallery Manila Philippines Objects Tossed from One Country to Another Theo Gallery Manila Philippines 2004 Art And Life Artist Residency Show Big Sky Mind Manila Philippines An Almost Entirely Vanishing Act Big Sky Mind Manila Philippines Cancelled Metaphor Finale Gallery Manila Philippines 2003 Multiple Portables Plastic Kinetic Worm Gallery Singapore DOGSHOW Surrounded by Water Alternative Space Gallery Manila Philippines 2002 The Invicible College Surrounded by Water Alternative Space Gallery Manila Philippines Rugged Art Gallery Inaugural Exhibit 2001 University of the East Artist’s Alumni Philam Life Bldg. United Nations Ave Manila Philippines 2000 Mise En Scene Surrounded

by Water Alternative Space Gallery Manila Philippines 1998 Uncommon Nonsense Blind Tiger Café Manila Philippines 1997 Definition Surrounded by Water Alternative Space Gallery Manila Philippines Residencies 2011 TARP TAKSU Kuala Lumpur Malaysia 2004-05 Big Sky Mind Artist Projects Foundation Cubao Quezon City Philippines

SNUFF new paintings by ARGIE BANDOY

Gallery Hours Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 7pm Sunday 12pm - 6pm

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Brochure Š 2011 TAKSU Singapore Artworks and Images Š 2011 Argie Bandoy Essay Masi Solano Catalog design jeff@studio25.my Printer Unico Services

cover detail of Sarge / Oil, beeswax, plaster cast, wood shelf mounted on canvas / 183 x 213.36 cm / 2011

March 2011

43 Jalan Merah Saga #01-72 Workloft @ Chip Bee Singapore 278115 T +65 6476 4788 F +65 6476 4787 sing@taksu.com www.taksu.com