Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

At a glance, there may seem nothing special about the oeuvres of Mark Andy Garcia. However, as an artist who believes that all he does is rooted in the word of God, he seeks to visualize the human psyche as a particular condition arising from autobiographical accounts. Thus, the deliberate echo of the spiritual, theological, and evangelical is ever-resounding in his pieces. “I paint the belief, the emotion, the feeling. It’s on the boundary of abstraction,” said Garcia about the evolution of his art. What he described is manifested in his depictions of alluring landscapes, flowers in vases, and figures immersed in water or surrounded by nature. For this oil painting, on the other hand, his chosen subject was bottles. For Garcia, art is very personal, painting is a reflective practice. He describes it as his lifestyle and his path in life. As he matures, so does his art. His highly-textured works attest to an intuitive and gestural manner of painting. His approach towards painting has a somewhat childlike sincerity to it, with an undercurrent of religious intensity that churns both his content and brushwork. The expressionistic marks and details on Garcia’s canvases reveal the painter’s presence and persona. In 2022, when this piece was made, Garcia held a solo show titled “In Due Time” at the West Gallery and was also included in ArtFair Philippines at the Silverlens Gallery. (P.I.R.)