Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

This highly personal piece was created while Garibay was at the tail-end of his residency in 2011-2012 at the City Wide Open Studios OMSC, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. It has heretofore never been exhibited. Emmanuel Garibay is a highly regarded ‘artist’s artist.’ In his early 30s, he not only received the first prize for painting at the annual Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) competition in 1994 but was also bestowed the Diwa ng Sining Award by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA.) That watershed year began a kilometric list of solo exhibits and various recognitions, including being named as one of the CCP’s influential Thirteen Artists in 2000. In Salaysay, Garibay’s narrative consists of a handful of pensive portraits. Two, by his own admission, are in fact self-portraits. (These are the blue-jacketed bearded man in the center and second in the left bottom corner.) The rest of the faces —one silenced, another smiling, all knowing— are drawn from his rich imagination. (Lisa Guerrero Nakpil)