Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art

Words are of little importance to Geraldine Javier. The dialogue between her paintings and their audience happens beyond the realm of language, the visual experience evokes sensation without touching on words. Her paintings lock your gaze, turning your attention inwards; time slows.

Paint is pliant in this artist’s hands, transformed from liquid substance into a multitude of textures and forms, from eerily exquisite marble to soft warm cotton worn with time. Brushstrokes are fine, precise, deftly controlled. The manner in which the she handles her materials offers clues about her temperament and personality. Her work exudes calculated restraint and discipline. The artist does not surrender to intuition; she plots out her strategies before getting on with work.

Born in 1970, in Makati City, Geraldine Javier took a degree in nursing before becoming an artist. Through her conceptually oriented training under the seminal Roberto Chabet at University of the Philippines (UP), Javier, like many of her peers, has acquired the predilection for making art which emphasises intellectual engagement over immediate emotional response. She belongs to a new generation of young Filipino artists whose interests are variegated and extensive, and who, unlike their social-realist predecessors, are engaged in pursuing the personal and the idiosyncratic. These voices from the periphery express powerful individual narratives influenced by international media and local pop culture. Their works are charged with tension and provocation, combining cool, calculated sophistication with raw urban grit -“the general low-end third world stuff.”

Film and photography are Javier’s immediate source of references. Some of her most vivid memories of childhood include afternoon sessions in front of the television watching classics like Knife in the Water by Ingmar Bergman, or local films such as Kisapmata, Itim, Insiang and Himala by Filipino directors Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, whose sensibilities evoke those of old, moody European films. “There are only a handful of characters, some scenes may appear to be slow and dragging, but to me it is where tension is more palpable. What I like most in these films is that they are emotionally charged, in a subtle way, unlike the screaming melodramas we have now.”

Inspired by war movies and images from newspaper clippings, Plaster Saints depicts a series of religious icons and dolls that hold different significances during the different stages of our lives. “What has always struck and haunted me, amidst the death and destruction, are images of icons trapped in the rubble and toys smeared with blood. I find the sense of loss incredibly palpable in these scenes. Angels and dolls are two of the most familiar images, especially to a Filipino Catholic. They are symbols of innocence, purity; I chose to depict them weathered by use and time, a testament to living. I hope to reassess the value of these icons in our life – from our childhood to adulthood, sort of a companion and an embodiment of our joy, despair, hope; something that will provide comfort and assurance in our many emotional needs.”

Images of death, misery, dysfunctional relationships, and emotional violence are recurrent themes in Javier’s work. Her world thrives on complex, viscous thoughts and intimations, silent tensions and implosions. The images she creates offer the paradox of recognition and uncertainty. Her paintings make you concentrate, look at things twice. The eye combs through the image; it seems familiar, yet something is amiss. A sneaking feeling creeps up on you, like a shy creature, and tells you there is an unsettling presence lurking behind the moodiness. There is an air of inward brooding and alienation, an uncanny feeling akin to photography’s ‘punctuum’, as coined by Roland Barthes to mean a sting, speck or cut, ‘a prick of the image’; a disturbance or arresting element in an image that catches the eye’s attention, unsettling and unnameable.

Kulay-Diwa

Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art

Geraldine Javier

Geraldine Javier

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