“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” - Oscar Wilde
And in moonlight, it states lunacy, not in a sense of deranged insanity, but in such an enhanced condition of madness that offers a diverse perception of seeing things. The dawn is actually the endowment of inner enlightenment and a higher awareness between the mutual dependence of reality and anti-reality. This is but the precious gift bearing fruit from the dreamer’s boundless replenishment of creative imaginings and reconstruction of imageries. A dreamer, such as an artist.
And so are the vivid, albeit dreamy masterpieces of this rising contemporary painter in her 3rd solo exhibition, which smudges the thin border of delineation that separates reality and dreaming, as to presenting a marriage of concept between patterned abstraction and Indonesian Wayang figures. Where within her own artistic freedom she launches a lucid exploration through the surreal and renarrates the events of her much complicated life in an experimental autobiography of paintings. These visions depict the enshrouding nature of nightfall and the vague, spontaneous imagery of dreams. According to Rodriguez, all the works in this show are personally linked into her soul, digging deep into the core of her own, repressed emotions. In fact, she has even withdrawn within any possible link from the metropolitan suburbs and retreated into a secluded rural area in order to tap the most inner recesses of her psyche and seal her from the post-modern influences of the outside world. She stated in an interview that she was launching experimentations on a new style that was completely different from her past anthology of works. Because like her artistic deity Pacita Abad, Marga’s works are constantly deviating from the present, normative trend of art, constantly breaching and exploring its untried fields and uncharted subjects. And through this temporal moment of isolation, what came out was a beautifully merged synergy of indigenous trapunto inspired patterns, slithering golden tree branches, and a natural stream of the individual dreaming state. Within its totality, “the Oneironaut” offers more that what meets the eye and delves deep into the subconscious, looking-glass mirrors of the human soul, in where both man’s greatest desire and most feared predicaments exist simultaneously and ironic as it is, unconsciously.
"The Oneironaut" opens at 6:00 p.m. on January 11, 2009 at Tala Gallery, 100 Scout De Guia Street, Kamuning, Quezon City, Philippines. The show runs until January 31, 2009. For inquiries, please call Tala Gallery, at +632 441-1267 or +632 441-0337, e-mail info@talagallery.com.ph ; or visit www.talagallery.com.ph
Tala Gallery presents “The Oneironaut” (one who explores the world of dreams), a one-woman exhibition featuring recent works by Marga Rodriguez. The show runs from January 11 until January 31, 2009.
"The Oneironaut" traverses the indistinct border that separates reality from the world of dreams. Essentially autobiographical in nature, the works in this exhibit suffuse Asian art iconographies with a near-inexpressible whirl of emotions. Rodriguez recounts her fascination with the mysteries of nightfall and of dreams, and while doing so, hints at the innermost recesses of her psyche. The images in these works, while beautiful and mysterious, at the same time convey a sense of the angst, insecurity, suppressed feelings and desires that often accompany the dream state.
For this exhibit, Rodriguez, usually a city-dweller, retreated to a remote rural setting on a farm in Batangas Province, Philippines, where, in her own words, she “traveled without moving” while reinvigorating herself in a “creative slumber.” The recuperative natural energies that Rodriguez absorbed during her time spent in this peaceful pastoral environment have been utilized and skillfully transmuted within the images presented in her magical canvases.
Tala Gallery is located at #100 Scout De Guia St., Kamuning, Quezon City, Philippines. For information, contact the gallery at tel. +632 441 1267 or +632 401 0337, by e-mail at info@talagallery.com.ph, or visit the website at www.talagallery.com.ph.
