Provenance: Larasati Auctioneers, COMING OF AGE: Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, London, November 7-9, 2017

ABOUT THE WORK

Andres Barrioquinto’s portrait with flowers is charged with the artist’s unique use of symbolism and imagery. The painting itself is an invitation for the viewer to enter his own mind’s garden and revisit nostalgic memories. Emerging from a deeply personal space, the piece depicts, and evokes, a sentimental longing for an idealized past. As always, master craftsman Barrioquinto uses intricate detailing and a colorful palette for a poignant visual that can send viewers back in time. In the painting, nostalgia is expressed as a quiet moment tucked away in the mind’s garden. In the midst of the garden’s natural beauty, a memory is tapped. True enough, like passion, actual details fade from memory and are lost to time. Flowers wander the woman’s facial features like memories flitting in one’s mind. While abstracted images of tigers populate the background; there is a foreboding symbolism for the stark and relentless absurdity of reality.