EXHIBITED WORKS
Artesan  Gallery +  Studio
793, Bukit Timah Rd #02-01
Singapore 269765

The Sufficiency of Grace
by Liv Romualdez Vinluan

June 9 to 21, 2011

In Search of the Vessel Called Grace

In her previous works, Liv Romualdez Vinluan—who, in her early 20’s, is already one of the emerging names in Philippine visual arts—has grappled with the social and the political: the resulting images are hybridizations of forms and commentary, often times giving birth to haunting, fantastical figures of the unconscious of the archipelago’s long, tortured history. Removed from their context and sources, they move to the forefront as characters in a narrative that is absorbent of distress, struggle and even violence—like cloth dipped into gasoline.

But in her latest work, The Sufficiency of Grace, the artist turns her gaze inward, toward interior states grappling with the alarm and the randomness of the personal. Art, this time, has been used as a focusing lens to zero-in on daytime nightmares, cruel interruptions and moments of decenteredness. What emerges is a woman struggling with or freeing herself from what looks like a multi-colored sack, her face partly concealed, the language of her body at once strained and balletic.

Vinluan’s figure is reminiscent of BenCab’s Sabel, the mad woman. But unlike the latter, the woman we see in the canvas has an adroitness that is not merely indicative of sanity but also of self-awareness. She is no doomed figure: her entrapment in a piece of cloth could be seen as a metaphorical cocooning, so she could emerge resplendent and world-ready. Her face, though partly invisible, is not distorted into a grimace of pain and confusion. She is aware of her predicament and seems to have the necessary skills to transcend it.

What nudges the work toward the surreal is the swirl of liquid that appears to be milk (or perhaps tears). It surges forth from different places into evocative curlicues, tendrils of fluidity. It is indicative of origins, of sustenance, of motherhood, of female abundance. As the cohering thread of the paintings, the liquid is contemporaneous with the figure, as if they are merged by an elementary form of grace.

It’s evident that Vinluan didn’t set out to exorcise personal demons but to give shape, heft and purpose to the routines of the domestic, the mundane dance with life. Be it a request of intercession from the Infant Jesus, or a venture into personal freedom, or making sense out of the inanity of inanimate objects (the velvet cake looking like heaps of red meat), Vinluan approaches the process through her art with an eye for contradiction, eagerness and surprise. -Carlomar Arcangel Daoana

ABOUT THE ARTIST Liv Romualdez Vinluan (b. 1987) has a degree in Fine Arts (major in Painting) from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. Her recent one-woman shows include The Babes of Villa Termino (Finale Art File; Manila, Philippines ) and Infanta, Armalite (Richard Koh Fine Art; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). Drawing from the reserves of history and contemporary discourse, Vinluan offers imagined narratives and illumined glimpses of the Filipino psyche. Her works, expressive with a rich figurative surface, are charged with subtle commentary and an exploratory undercurrent of the surreal.

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