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Preview creative IT
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Preview October 2006
Marina Cruz
By Clarissa Chikiamco
With her petite frame and delicate
features, one might mistake Marina Cruz more for a pixie than an artist. Yet this young up –and-comer is one of the
most hardworking and promising that the Philippine art scene can offer. With a BFA degree Major in Painting at the
University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, she graduated cum laude in 2003
with most outstanding thesis under her belt.
Her first solo exhibit Kambal at Boston Gallery last year
bagged her a place as one of the twelve short-listed artist for the 2006 Ateneo
Art Awards. Combining artistic skill and
dexterity with history and memory, Marina used as source of inspiration a
picture of her mother and her mother’s twin sister celebrating their third
birthday, and the frocks they wore on that occasion, unearthed more than fifty
years later. The result was, hands down,
one of the most outstanding art exhibitions in Manila this year.
Currently,
Marina
is taking up a Masters in Art Education while teaching art and art perspectives
in Miriam College High School. While she only has group shows scheduled for
the rest of the year, its already safe to mark her next one-woman show, slated
at Boston Gallery in 2007, as one of the can’t-miss events in the next year’s
Philippine cultural calendar.
Faithful copies
By Patrick D. Flores
[From
the catalogue texts of Analogue/Playground: Extensions to the Graphic
Ateneo
Art
Gallery
19 October 2005 20
January, 2006]
Affinity
[…]
Critical in
this procedure of searching affinity is memory.
Marina Cruz is most diligent in this regard, as she recovers the
baptismal dress of her mother, makes impressions of it, and unveils versions
cast in a range of intervening devices that conceive different translations of
a plural ‘mother’. The artist confesses
that this act entails sacrifice because it distresses a sentimental treasure so
that it could be shared. […]
telos, extension, ambivalence, teka…
by Jose Tence Ruiz
[From
the catalogue texts of Analogue/Playground: Extensions to the Graphic
Ateneo Art
Gallery
19 October 2005 20
January, 2006]
[…]
Marina ‘Tun’ Cruz raises the pasted print
we know as collagraph print in the realm of higher relief --- literally. Her proposal, titled Reified Recurrence is occasioned / necessitated by her
subjects/objects which are the actual baptismal gowns and infant clothes of
twins --- her mother and aunt. The aged,
embroidered splendor of these dresses defy traditional monoprint pressing onto
damped paper. Hardware substances offer
more flexibility. Literally again. Raw latex, for one. But she has to use the latex fro two
functions. One to create a deep ‘female’
(sunken) cast of the original clothes mounted on flat smooth waxed board. Then to take the same liquid and pour in a
male cast or, or high relief print.
As the male cast is being poured, a
list of water solubles may be introduced to charge mnemonic or emotional
resonances into the impression. Bits of
photos, shreds of paper, acrylic tints, leaves, powders, emulsions, sand,
etc.. Marina’s ‘female’ impression/mould
might also yield reifications from motley mixtures like resin, liquefied epoxy,
wet plaster, cast-stone, among those that ‘Tun’ has already stumbled upon. Hi-relief prints and nostalgic textural
adventure pulled with raw rubber, and others fluids equally fecund, as
recurrent end product instead of merely transfer or transitional technology.
On Kambal
Notes by Clarissa Chikiamco
From
Ateneo Art Awards 2006 catalogue
Two identical twins face the viewer. It is their third birthday and they are
dressed in identical party dresses to celebrate the occasion. Despite their matching haircuts, a streak of
their individual personalities reveals itself.
On the left the little toddler (the artist’s mother) looks out in an
easy manner – neither smile nor frown curls her mouth – while on the right, her
sister purses her lips and shoots a challenging glare. A photograph, uncovered by Cruz and her grandmother
more than fifty years later, is the source for this painting done in Cruz’s
capable hands.
More amazing still is the survival
and recovery of the dresses, which become objects by which the artist lovingly
pays tribute to memory. With a single
cast, Cruz crafted the sculptures, capturing each crinkle, curl and fold of the
dresses. The delicateness of their
appearance echoes the preciousness of the past.
The different colors in the sculptures (the colors of the actual dresses
are identical), whether for aesthetic purposes or some other reason, recalls
the individuality and the sameness by which twins are bound.
The works are an homage to history,
memory and family. Yet even without the
story behind it, the art can stand and be appreciated all the same.
Patrons of honor
by DJ Montano
From
Philippine Star Ystyle Section June 22, 2007
[…] Ateneo
Art Awards paired art loving patrons with their artists…10 patrons and their
narratives about their chosen artist.
Astrud Crisologo on Marina
Cruz
I always admired Marina’s
work. Her pieces speak of lost
childhood, fears, anxieties and dreams. Marina’s “Helen” spoke to
me from the moment I laid eyes on her in her studio. There’s more than meets the eye with this
piece. At fist you see a traditional
doll. Then you notice certain details that
are unconventional like the dark colors.
Why is she standing? Why doesn’t she have eyes? Contrasts that are fun, and at the same time,
sinister. Domestic and otherworldy…
reflections of our dualistic nature. Her
use of somber shades, a contradiction of the colorful toys, fascinated me. According to Marina, it alludes to danger. The doll
tiptoeing on the edge of the rocker was a sign of pain to come, or even madness
perhaps? It also shows a certain dislike
of her doll. I gathered that she and I had
the same fear of dolls when we were children.
They seemed to just stare at us in the dark with their glassy eyes. Her desire to paint dolls meant facing her
fears. I can very much relate to that.
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