Lunacy and lunar cycles
The Maya Calendar
predicted that the world would end in 2012. In The 7 Chronicles of Madness, artists Froilan Calayag and Ramona
Dela Cruz-Gaston have taken
this prophetic circle of doom and turned it into a labyrinthine carnival
overflowing with naïf creatures, esoteric symbols, inside jokes, personal memories, snatches of everyday conversations, and
meditations on the future.
Calayag, a
well-established artist with five solo exhibitions, is a dark prince of fairy
tales. His three-dimensional paintings, sinister and beguiling at once, are populated
by deceivingly charming beasts with predatory eyes and rictus grins. His brush is capricious,
guided solely by the whims of
his imagination.
Dela Cruz-Gaston, on the
other hand, is an art-scene ingénue who favors the mandala—technical, geometric, and deliberate—as her
medium. Her flat-perspective
symmetrical designs require methodical planning that is almost the antithesis of
Calayag’s impulsive nature.
Chaos and calculation
meet in The 7 Chronicles of Madness, a transcendent display of artistry. The show’s 7’x7’centerpiece,
titled Mad Calendar, is
collaboration in the truest sense of the word. Calayag and Dela Cruz-Gaston painted
together, pushing each other to new creative heights. Looking at the finished oil-on-canvas
work, it
is impossible to tell
where one artist ends and the other begins.
Composition-wise, the
concentric circles that make up Mad Calendar echo the piece’s Mayan foundation. At
its center, a hybrid creature, white-furred and open-mouthed, replaces the Tonatiuh, the
Mexican sun god. Around this
blue-eyed beast are four layers, teeming with images.
In the innermost wheel,
the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—alternate with human basic needs. Beyond, the four cardinal directions punctuate 12
petals, one for every month of the year; and in the outermost wheel, 31 divisions
representing the number of days in a month. The 12 signs of the Zodiac are likewise present,
scattered throughout the circles.
Avatars of Calayag and
Dela Cruz-Gaston—a prickly pumpkin and a young girl with lucky clovers in her hair,
respectively—watch the colorful abundance unspool before them. In place of the Maya
Calendar’s glyphs, the artists have
painted brief but luminous visual metaphors, which, taken together, form a radial
constellation so full and so generous that the eye is overwhelmed.
This visual bounty is
separated from a black void by a wall assaulted on all fronts by a noxious green
morass of negativity: a knife through a heart, broken crayons and broken dreams, general decay. The
wall holds firm. Battered as
it is, it is not breached.
Mad Calendar is
complemented by six works (hence The 7 Chronicles of Madness), three
oil-on-paper paintings, also circular in composition, from each artist.
Completed after the show’s collaborative centerpiece, these smaller, individual works bear witness to how
the mimetic process affected
both Calayag and Dela Cruz-Gaston.
Dela Cruz-Gaston had an
epiphany while looking at her most recent work: “I’ve to realize that the purpose of collaboration is not
to paint or draw side by
side with your partner,” she said. “It is to learn.”
The impact on her
rendering style is visible, and she is not loath to admit it. “I’ve seen
great changes, which I cannot undo. These changes don’t just happen because many
artists—myself included—can be
egotistical.”
Calayag, with a few
pointed words, explained that the exercise was a success because he and Dela
Cruz-Gaston were kindred spirits: “We’re probably old souls that met before.”
The 7 Chronicles of Madness is a prime example of how true collaboration can stoke the fires of creation. It is a show born
out of mutual respect and
admiration. It is an unconscious, unselfish embrace of another’s divine inspiration.
— ll
The exhibit opens on June
30, 8pm onwards at Vinyl on Vinyl gallery at The Collective, 7274 Malugay St,
Makati.
To see the rest of the artworks, click HERE.
Visit our page!
To see the rest of the artworks, click HERE.
Visit our page!
