Andres Barrioquinto first made his mark in 2003 as one of the winners of the important Thirteen Artists Awards of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This work is perhaps one of the earliest on the market, dating right after that landmark triumph.
Since then, he has gone on to become one of the most well-known Philippine artists in Southeast Asia.
Barrioquinto has been quoted as saying that he is most “interested in probing my own soul rather than reflecting the world of ideas, and in expressing my inner world than revealing a basic harmony around us. I paint images so exaggerated or distorted that they take us away from the familiar world into one of emotion and feeling. In their most extreme, these expressions may even become hysterical or nightmarish. I also try new means of expression, seeking new direction, exploring new mediums and methods of working.”
In ‘Unexamined Failure’, Barrioquinto creates a riveting anti-establishment piece composed of a cawing crow which seems to be intoning the chilling written words, “Slave” and “System.” A pig’s head and calves’ feet and parts seem to tell of what an artist must suffer for his art. There are what appears to be stylized flames of passion. A blue-haloed figure — perhaps a critic — is in one corner. Here, Barrioquinto makes a powerful, almost mesmeric portrait of a painter’s life.