An understanding too enamoured by the long mimetic tradition of painting has been, in the recent past, weakened by the potential brought forth by what painting has become. It would be foolish to think of painting now as something purely in relation to what it represents; its success judged according to its faithfulness to reality. If in earlier times, painters laboured over perspective, anatomy, and light in their attempt to depict the world as realistically as possible, today’s painters (thanks to the advent of photography) are no longer burdened by this kind of pictorial mode. Photography radically shifted the nature of painting, for it released painters from the task of direct representation that had for so long been its primary function, thereby giving way to the development of abstraction.

The paintings of the four artists in this exhibition—Gerardo Tan, Raul Rodriguez, David Griggs, and Maria Cruz—are all of the representational mode and, in varying degrees, have a brush with mechanical reproduction. Yet they offer a kind of resistance to the homogeneity that is characterized by commonplace, photo-based imagery. Their concern is not so much in the seamlessness of a direct photographic copy, but in a kind of physical involvement with the image and medium itself.

In Gerardo Tan’s works, every image is a readymade. Painted and printed copies of images from newspapers, grocery flyers, art magazines, and posters coexist in a non-hierarchical matrix of collisions between the abstract and the familiar, the real and the fake, the rare and the mundane. Actually based on collages, his paintings internalize the disjunction of images while probing concepts of originality, individual authorship, and style. Given his conceptual background, he treats the surface of his paintings as an arena where meanings are simultaneously made, subverted, and consumed.

Similarly, Raul Rodriguez’s paintings are collage-based. While Tan draws from everyday images lying around his studio, Rodriguez scavenges through the annals of art history, particularly famous artists who have died leaving a legacy. He says, “I borrowed images minimally manipulated, modified, or interpreted from artists who died in accidents (Pollock, Smithson), terminal illness (Haring, F. Gonzalez-Torres), self-inflicted wounds (Rothko, Van Gogh, R. Johnson, A. Gorky, Fred Sandback) or drug / alcohol-related deaths (Basquiat, Kippenberger); not exactly resembling their original image / idea, but as elements to fill compositionally my canvases.” The morbidity of the project is joined by the fact that artistic achievements, however glorious, when passed down and removed from its context or time, become like any other readymade image that we store in the backs of our minds, retrieve when needed, and cut and paste to suit our present desires.

David Griggs’ practice periodically shifts from painting to photography. In both instances, he uses the image as an index to the fractured states of human existence. His travels to other Asian countries—exotic, ravaged, and grossly poor compared to his home country Australia—have deeply impacted his work. His “impressions” of foreign cultures are imprinted on his works, not unlike the tattoos that mark his body. In a number of works, he has created an amalgamation of iconic signs that point to his encounter with the Philippines, which he first visited in 2005. His subsequent trips have led to close collaborations with Filipino artists such as Jayson Oliveria. Nicknamed ‘Johnny’ (Depp) by Griggs, Oliveria represents a kind of artist that works with the grunge and grit of his environment, ordering his images in an edgy, explosive yet effortless manner—a stance also adopted by Griggs.

In Maria Cruz’s paintings, words are also images, equally or perhaps even more capable of invoking endless associations than any given picture. Unlike her male colleagues in this exhibition, she does not directly rely on readymade photographic imagery; instead, she creates her own personal symbols, which are in themselves shaped by the physicality of her medium. She does, however, also make use of the semiotic possibilities within the image that she chooses to represent coupled with color theory. In these paintings, overheard conversations are translated and coded as simple texts—He Said, She Said, Therapy, Too Much—with vertical bands / bars of color at once monotonous, minimal, and in the shadows.

Images will never leave painting, even if abstraction has already pointed out that the ultimate reality is not the one that can be grasped by the senses. We desperately cling to our images, for it is a way of dealing with the terror of the abyss opened up by abstraction. Likewise, painting will endure even with the development of the most advanced technology.

While the artists in this exhibition might reference other media and practices, in the end, it is still ultimately painting that is their chosen activity. It has already been said that while it was precisely the camera that allowed us to think and see the world in terms of images, it is still painting that lets us reconfigure it. The ambiguity carved out by the painter’s brush vis-à-vis the specificity of the photographic process is perhaps another factor that helps painting maintain its privileged status. Its aura, in fact, was never lost; it is sustained even further by the flood of reproductions of images that are part and parcel of the real.

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