Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

The works of Geraldine Javier represent an important epochal shift within the Filipino art community. Though chronologically, she rose to prominence together with social realists, her works are often seen as the mainstream departure from the aforementioned style. Instead, her works are variegated and extensive, emphasizing the personal and idiosyncratic nature of the creative process. Thus, Javier’s works often depart from traditional forms of beauty and form, even more so than her modernist and social-realist predecessors, by depicting the often forgotten or taboo annals of reality. In this alluring diptych by Javier entitled Closing the Circle, Javier explores the often anathematic or taboo concept of death. But unlike most depictions of death and decay whose focus is either to shock or mortify, Javier’s macabre diptych is a careful and thoughtful depiction of death that does not antagonize it, but accepts its inevitability as a natural and humbling part of life. Javier aptly and poetically displays this process via her diptych, with her first image showcasing a potential cadaver strewn in between roots and weeds, and her second depicting a flower bud that is at the cusp of blooming. As a contemporary artist inspired by popular culture, Javier utilizes montage theory in order to give context to her series of images. By implying a narrative structure, one can absorb Javier’s work with a familiar and nostalgic eye. Thus, Closing the Circle perfectly exemplifies Javier’s ability to turn morbid concepts into meaningful ones.