HUMAN NATURE. August 6 - September 9, 2016 -- 1335Mabini Gallery

*Music, film and photography by Rogelio Castillo II

1335MABINI proudly presents Mark Andy Garcia in a solo exhibition this August 6 to September 9, 2016.

Mark Andy Garcia presents a set of new paintings representative of the the artist’s distinct aesthetics indicative of his identification with the virtues of expressionism. In contrast with his other works that primarily feature narratives with human portrayal, the predominance of the landscape as subject matter for his new works serves as a bid for equilibrium against the persistent existential attitude that permeates his artistic practice due to his incessant encounters with the absurdity of the world throughout his personal life.

Photographic semblance is the least of Garcia’s creative concerns. The significant aspect of his practice is the conveyance of his current state of mind, being expressed and preserved in his approach to the act of painting, and resonating with his choice of representational subject matter. Apart from the typical use of the brush, the artist’s exercise of his hands to directly apply paint on canvas enable him further in making his thoughts and emotions evident. The depiction of the natural environment – forests, plains, rivers, and seas – could be construed as an internal dialogue within an individual troubled with human affairs and simultaneously greeted with the sublime quality of nature that trivializes.

Garcia’s choice of recurrent imagery is also characteristically metaphorical. One simply has to note the titles that Garcia assign to his works, and realize that these objects, places, and instances have been imbued with meanings that also address temporal concerns associated with natural phenomena, in light of metaphysical contemplations: water convey spiritual purification, trees represent fortitude, and spring season connotes renewal. Garcia’s paintings, therefore, reflect the process of contending with reality and the pursuit of transcending above and beyond it.

Mark Andy Garcia (b.1984) graduated from the Technological University of the Philippines in 2005 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Advertising, and is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Thirteen Artists Award in 2015 – acknowledged for his body of work that have been exhibited in notable galleries and museums in the Philippines. Known for his highly-textured pieces that attest to an intuitive and gestural manner of painting, Garcia seeks to visualize the human psyche at a particular condition arising from autobiographical accounts.

- Text by Jose Luis Singson