ABOUT THE WORK

An alumnus of the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts and a finalist of the Metrobank Foundation Painting Competition in 2005, Juanito Torres has gained the attention of the art scene with his parallelisms of history and contemporary life as a way of generating new narrative trajectories. In this work, Jose Rizal, together with a woman wearing a Filipiniana (possibly Josephine Bracken), is decontextualized from his historical moment. Now situated against the curved railing of an opulent interior, Rizal looks out of place and interrogative of the viewer. Defamiliarized this way, Rizal, as mediated by Torres, prompts questions on the role of heroes and their continued relevance to contemporary times.