“My
collage is the result of images that went on a speed-date
that got married with my consent.”
Dina Gadia
that got married with my consent.”
Dina Gadia
In defense of his 1917 work Fountain, Marcel
Duchamp is reported as saying “whether Mr.Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not
has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it
so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of
view-- and created a new thought for that object.” This conceptual idea
that the artist’s choice is the paramount ingredient in the definition of a
work being art has resonated ever since, especially in the arenas of
appropriation and collage.
Inspired by old movie posters, pulp
illustrations, comics, old textbook illustrations, album covers and other
visual ephemera Filipino artist Dina
Gadia has made the selection and juxtapositioning of their images the
mainstay of her art. Employing the use of both appropriation and collage her
work is starting to gain recognition outside of the Philippines. With Artinfo’s
Eric Bryant stating in 2011 “The Philippines
is a crossroads of influences — from the China and Indonesia to Spain and the
United States — and Gadia’s manipulation of imagery from vintage imported
magazine beautifully captures that culture.”
Gadia’s first job after graduating
from the Far Eastern University with a fine arts degree with an advertising
major, she swapped from architecture because of the maths involved, was with
the Manila Bulletin. Where, as she told Artes
De Las Filipinas, “In publishing, I do layouts for magazines and
newspapers, do illustrations for the Sunday “kiddy” section of the paper and
make infographics for some of the articles.”
Since her first solo show Ultra Plastic Style Now! at Manila’s Hiraya
Gallery in 2009, Gadia’s career has taken off and her need for a day job has
become redundant. Working with painting which says is contemplative; requiring
studies for their completion, as opposed to her collages which are spontaneous Gadia
pursues an aesthetic that allows her choices to question the conventional by
turning nostalgia on its head.
As she says in her artist’s
statement “I use the artworks or images of previous generations as my own,
recycling and reframing in order to create a new one by making fun of the
images, twisting them, and injecting humorous juxtapositions. My idea is not to
please with my work. It has to be ugly in some way. Like a cult film, I choose
my work to remain part of the ‘so bad it’s so good’ variety. I want it raw, bad
and tough yet funny.
Gadia’s latest exhibition At Odds with
the Visual is currently on show
at Manila’s Silverlens Gallery until the 25th
of April.
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