Wire Tuazon basks in Mortal Splendor, his latest one-man exhibit at the West Gallery, West Avenue, Quezon City. In the exhibit, Tuazon demonstrates his versatility in creating both two-dimensional and three-dimensional pieces as he showcases his newest paintings and installation works in mixed media that are on view at the gallery from August 23 through September 10.
Tuazon describes this new set of works as “a paradox of control, popular memory, time loss, and immortality.” Tuazon finds himself very involved throughout the process-depicting his very own personal voyage in a seemingly random scene. To him, art-making acts “as a counterpoint in developing new visual continuities explored in different media at different times.”
His installations start from a personal perspective, but are represented in historical, figurative, and expressive conditions. The paintings, on the other hand, are considered “artificial reinforcements on the diverse meanings and aspects of life and death.” Tuazon adds that they “are an ironic criticism of my generation’s fanaticism on the universality of meaning, resulting in ` commodification’ and changing sense of humanity .“ Tuazon doesn’t only create such works to express how he feels, but he himself is living it, including some circumstances he couldn’t fully control. Perhaps that is the reason why Tuazon prefers large-scale or life-sized formats-to give the effect of immediacy or proximity to life itself. Each piece is a commentary on a particular place and time.
Twenty-five small, black and silver paintings in oil and enamel on canvas, ranging from 8” x 6” to 5’ x 5’ on tarpaulin, a 4’ x 6’ text –based painting (without any images), two tall paintings, and a floor installation of objects make up Mortal Splendor. Adds Tuazon, “Each painting functions as a deadpan portrait of objects and scenes, the pathos and the absurd, complete with the grotesqueries of images. These subjects, floating around in paintings that don’t always seem fully developed, are aberrations, whose alienation and confusion sometimes allow for a variety of metaphoric interpretations.”
In “Miracles Happen” (Pygmalion and Galatea –5’ x 5’ each oil, enamel, light bulbs, animal bones, and ropes on tarpaulin), Tuazon deals with recurring themes. The two round portraits of sad clowns, evoking bareness and loneliness, were inspired by the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. Embedded around each portrait are wishing bones.”I don’t know how much these paintings are about isolation, but the tragic [thing] is universal. the cycle of life has a lot of strange and obscure relations to offer.”
Tuazon studied painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. Shortly, he established the maverick artist space, Surrounded by Water, with his peers. In 2003, he was as one of the recipients of the CCP Thirteen Artist Award.
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