Geraldine Javier Explained

Geraldine Javier is a contemporary Filipina Visual Artist whose work is best known for her work which blends of painting with various media, and is "recognized as one of the most celebrated Southeast Asian artists both in the academic world and in the art market."[1]

She rose to prominence in 2003 when she received the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Thirteen Artists award.,[1] and has since exhibited her works widely both in the Philippines and abroad.

Early life and training

Born in 1970, in Makati, Javier did not start out with a training in arts as most of her contemporaries did, having first pursued a career in nursing before turning to the arts.

When she did eventually begin her art training through a bachelor's degree at University of the Philippines Diliman (UP) College of Fine Arts, she was strongly influenced Roberto Chabet, who is known for "highly conceptually oriented training" - a fact which some critics credit her "predilection for making art which emphasises intellectual engagement over immediate emotional response."

Visual style and inspirations

Javier's work is best known for its blending of various media - sometimes with her oil paintings incorporated into installation art, and sometimes with various media such as embroidery or found objects prominently incorporated into her canvases.

Artist and art writer Nastia Voynovskaya, describing Javier's show, “Stuck in Reverse", in Berlin,[2] notes:

"Instead of stretching her canvases, she incorporates her oil painting into her installations, sewing them like tapestries into tent structures that evoke the feeling of “home.”

Her immediate sources of references are film and photography. "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." The moodiness of such sources influences the moodiness of her work.

Prominent themes

Malaysian curator and arts writer Adeline Ooi describes her work in context:[3]

"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.”[3]

Voynovskaya furthers that "[her] works show a strong reference of mortality. Combining cool, calculated sophistication with raw urban grit. Images of death, misery, dysfunctional relationships, and emotional violence are recurrent themes. Her world thrives on complex, viscous thoughts and intimations, silent tensions and implosions." Javier's works combine such themes into a conflict of the familiar and the unrecognizable, forcing the viewer to concentrate.

Ooi notes[3] that the use of religious iconography in some of Javier's work, while "devoid of any affiliation with a particular religion" and aiming at "communicating universal, collective values," is "connected to her own biography, having lived and struggled with the catholic culture in the Philippines." She quotes Javier as saying in 2001:[3]

“I had a primary and secondary Catholic education. The nuns taught us of the sacrifices of Jesus and the other martyrs and from this I can deduce that the catholic religion‘s foundation was built on blood and guilt as a consequence. The same guilt that the church exploits as it continues to exert an almost authoritarian influence on Philippine society and our government to the point of paralysis in terms of decision and policy making."

On the religious iconography found in Javier's Stuck in Reverse exhibition, Godfrey comments:[4]

"The Philippines is perhaps now the most staunchly Catholic of countries. Many Filipino artists are virulently opposed to the Catholic Church’s continued domination of society and respond with blasphemous detournements of its imagery and objects. Javier ... has long since stopped attending church but though in a work such as Blood Type C (Catholic), Major Major G (Guilt) of 2011 she has attacked its control she has also made work that recreates her delight as a child in making images of saints or performing ceremonies."

Solo exhibitions

Exhibitions in the Philippines include:

Since 2004, Javier has been exhibiting her work internationally. Some include:

Group exhibitions

Achievements

References

Notes and References

  1. "Geraldine Javier: In The Beginning..." http://www.arariogallery.co.kr/common/up_images/Exhibitions/pdf/exh_pdf_english_97.pdf
  2. Web site: Geraldine Javier's Interdisciplinary Artworks Investigate Mortality. January 2014.
  3. Web site: Ooi . Adeline . Stilling the Image: Geraldine Javier, Thirteen Artists Awardee 2003 . kulay-diwa.com . Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art . June 2006 . 2012-10-16 . 2013-07-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130729195700/http://www.kulay-diwa.com/geraldine_javier . dead .
  4. http://www.arndtfineart.com/website/media/ARNDT_booklet_Geraldine_Javier.pdf
  5. Web site: The radical gardens of Geraldine Javier. https://web.archive.org/web/20170903124600/http://cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/arts/2017/08/30/geraldine-javier-interview.html. dead. September 3, 2017. cnn. en. 2019-03-02.
  6. Web site: Geraldine Javier. West Gallery. 2019-03-02.
  7. Web site: 2012 Inventory. West Gallery. 2019-03-02.
  8. Web site: Geraldine Javier: Always Wild, Still Wild. Archive. Asia Art. aaa.org.hk. en. 2019-03-02.
  9. Web site: ARNDT - GERALDINE JAVIER. www.arndtfineart.com. 2019-03-02.
  10. Web site: ARNDT - MIGRATION MELBOURNE EDITION (2012). www.arndtfineart.com. 2019-03-02.
  11. Web site: Beacons of Archipelago: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia. Archive. Asia Art. aaa.org.hk. en. 2019-03-02.
  12. Web site: Enraptured (Partial). Archive. Asia Art. aaa.org.hk. en. 2019-03-02.
  13. Web site: VALENTINE WILLE FINE ART. www.vwfa.net. 2019-03-02.
  14. Web site: 2004 Ateneo Art Awards. Archive. Asia Art. aaa.org.hk. en. 2019-03-02.

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