Baguio City – Artist, Nona Garcia takes selfies like on other.
In a solo show in the mountain city, Gracia pays tribute to fellow creatives with, ‘After Artists,” at the Victor Oteyza Community Art Space (VOCAS) Gallery with a peculiar spin to portraiture.
Gracia keeps the faces of her subjects hidden, with their backs turned against the canvas, giving the audience the backend view.
The identities of Patricia Eustaquio, Louie Cordero, Kidlat Tahimik, MM Yu, Poklong Anading, Kawayan De Guia, Gary rose Pastrana, Yasmin Sison, Alfred Azquilan, Bencab, Maria Taniguchi, Jojo Legaspi, Roberto Chabet and Geraldine Javie are displayed, without their faces but with their backs, in a stand-still position.
The 14 life-sized portraits will treat the audience into a visual spectacle of a larger-than-life portrayal of the artists’ favorite people to whom she dedicates the show.
The show was opened by National Artist for film, Kidlat Tahimik on the August 8 followed by an invocation from Sagada artisan, Jason Domling, who asked for traditional blessings.
Fellow artist, Rocky Acofo Cajigan writes “Nona Garcia’s ongoing series of paintings of artists she looks up to, admires, or have influenced her practice, picks up on the idea of 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 and 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦. The faceless subjects, painted waist up from behind, are devoid of emotion. Artists become anonymous creators identifiable only by the work they produce.”
Gracia said artists often remain anonymous with their body of work becoming more popular that person themselves which fueled the idea to honor the faceless creatives.
Garcia shares the portrait project started in 2006 starting with family members and friends and culminates with the VOCAS show.
Cajigan notes, “Garcia’s portraits of subjects turned on their backs is the only series in her body of work that have people in them. She had no grand intention in 2006 when she started painting friends and family. It was a painter’s process to undertake the seventeenth century genres of painting: from landscape, to still life, to portraiture. The series began as postcard-sized to large scale, then reconciled as life-sized paintings. In 2019, 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 became a collection to include, as the title indicates, artist subjects.”
Gracia has been awarded the Grand Prize in the Philip Morris ASEAN Art Award in 2000, and is also a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Award (2003). Maria Elena Catajan
