CHRISTINA DY – “Soaplands” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)
“Soaplands” is part of the continuum of Dy’s grand-scale drawings in black and white. It is an erroneous title that had to be retained because of CCP’s notoriously inflexible bureaucracy, but it fortunately lends a startling mystery to what can only be described as an overflowing and pleasurable work. Rendered on canvas and florid with petals and tendrils of pictured and imagined flowers, this drawing/painting was aptly theatrical, having been installed as an almost complete wrap at CCP’s hallway overlooking the main theater lobby.
Dy states that she sees better in black and white, the basic gradations of which contribute to the grandeur and drama of the large-scale charcoal works she has done so far, but “Soaplands” is even more challenging since she didn’t have enough studio space for it. She worked on the canvas in modular portions even as she approached the drawing in an unplanned intuitive way. It is a marvel of landscape art: a vista achieved without the benefit of breadth and distance.
Charcoal here is laid out as a rhythm of strokes, alternating between the applied and erased. It breathes in and out as a meditative act: a suspension of chaos and an extension of the persistence of life.
Notes by Karen Ocampo Flores
“Soaplands” is part of the continuum of Dy’s grand-scale drawings in black and white. It is an erroneous title that had to be retained because of CCP’s notoriously inflexible bureaucracy, but it fortunately lends a startling mystery to what can only be described as an overflowing and pleasurable work. Rendered on canvas and florid with petals and tendrils of pictured and imagined flowers, this drawing/painting was aptly theatrical, having been installed as an almost complete wrap at CCP’s hallway overlooking the main theater lobby.
Dy states that she sees better in black and white, the basic gradations of which contribute to the grandeur and drama of the large-scale charcoal works she has done so far, but “Soaplands” is even more challenging since she didn’t have enough studio space for it. She worked on the canvas in modular portions even as she approached the drawing in an unplanned intuitive way. It is a marvel of landscape art: a vista achieved without the benefit of breadth and distance.
Charcoal here is laid out as a rhythm of strokes, alternating between the applied and erased. It breathes in and out as a meditative act: a suspension of chaos and an extension of the persistence of life.
Notes by Karen Ocampo Flores
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