TYBS#9 (JAN 2007)
In the movie adaptation of the graphic novel From Hell, a furious Jack the Ripper tells the stupefied Inspector about the symbols he mistook for mere mystical chicanery. He exclaimed, “Even one as depraved as you are can sense that these symbols course with meaning and power.”
I feel the same way about Wawi Navarroza’s collection of fine art photography, Saturnine: A Collection of Portraits, Creatures, Glass and Shadow. These are a series of pictures inclined to mythical fancy, anthropomorphic personification and a fascination with shadows. While they may seem to be digitally manipulated they are actually, painstakingly handmade.
Says Wawi: “I do not take pictures. I make them. I manually subject the negative to a careful blend of chaos and control. I let the heat and chemicals take them as nature will. And then I control the disintegration.”
Wawi has gained notoriety in bohemian circles as both a working photographer, fashion or otherwise, and as the maker of Polysaccharide: The Dollhouse Drama, her previous photography collection. Some of you may also recall the images from that collection reproduced in the popular record Doll’s House of The Late Isabel, where Wawi also does vocal duties.
While Polysaccharide took Wawi around the world on a touring exhibit it was, for eyes like mine ill-used to the sensibilities of fine art, its nuances or ambitions, too obscurantist. In parts they seemed ostentatious, even trivial. I felt no power behind the images, or perhaps the force of the message didn’t reach my depraved head because the vision was too personal. Saturnine, however, is a different collection altogether.
Swedish industrial band Interlace told me in interview that they make music like a riddle, and that “If you create a riddle you don’t want everyone to solve it. Because then it would be too easy. But you don’t want no one to solve it. Because then it’s too hard.” Saturnine feels the same way.
When you view the photographs they feel potent without being in your face, they feel clear with the illuminating significance just out of reach. All this is made with her trademark streak of enthrallment with the dark. It seems Wawi has finally found a way to let us share the visions in her head (or gut) without compromising her love of symbols, story or atmosphere. Or giving too much away.
While the Silverlens Gallery is probably the most clandestinely located art house in the metro (where Saturnine runs until Feb 17) it’ll be worth it to go just to see the evocative photo of the artist on bare feet in a shallow pool of water with paper boats scattered around, lengthily titled “The Return (After the Storm)/ The Traveller, Always Alone.”
“The seed of Saturnine,” writes Wawi, “came about in a period when I was seized by the mystery about the passage of time. Of looking at framed photos, friends come and gone, missing places, of looking at the mirror at 3AM. It all came to me that every moment is fragile, temporal, fleeting.”
Two of my favorites are “Voyage Solitaire (An Ode to Beginnings)”, where a sullen Hank Palenzuela (bassist for Agaw Agimat) sits amid a gloom of books and cards, and the mix of anxiety, waiting and vain romance that is “Her Greatest Fear is That She May Never See You Again.”
In Saturnine Wawi has created images of universal emotion capsulated by people and not-people (creatures who look like people?) that surprisingly share the same woes, dilemmas and delights.
“Pretty pictures alone does not fine art photography make,” she explains. “Pretty pictures you can hang on your living room is fine but you got to expect more if it's called `fine art.’ I'm cool with décor but I'm more for those images that poke at the head or heart, images that reflect the mind of its maker, the vision of the artist, the voice of conviction behind the works. Then, that to me is `fine art photography.’ ”
People will never doubt Wawi for her art not being honest or sincere again. Meaning and power resides in them. Look at the photos. Solve the riddle.
In the movie adaptation of the graphic novel From Hell, a furious Jack the Ripper tells the stupefied Inspector about the symbols he mistook for mere mystical chicanery. He exclaimed, “Even one as depraved as you are can sense that these symbols course with meaning and power.”
I feel the same way about Wawi Navarroza’s collection of fine art photography, Saturnine: A Collection of Portraits, Creatures, Glass and Shadow. These are a series of pictures inclined to mythical fancy, anthropomorphic personification and a fascination with shadows. While they may seem to be digitally manipulated they are actually, painstakingly handmade.
Says Wawi: “I do not take pictures. I make them. I manually subject the negative to a careful blend of chaos and control. I let the heat and chemicals take them as nature will. And then I control the disintegration.”
Wawi has gained notoriety in bohemian circles as both a working photographer, fashion or otherwise, and as the maker of Polysaccharide: The Dollhouse Drama, her previous photography collection. Some of you may also recall the images from that collection reproduced in the popular record Doll’s House of The Late Isabel, where Wawi also does vocal duties.
While Polysaccharide took Wawi around the world on a touring exhibit it was, for eyes like mine ill-used to the sensibilities of fine art, its nuances or ambitions, too obscurantist. In parts they seemed ostentatious, even trivial. I felt no power behind the images, or perhaps the force of the message didn’t reach my depraved head because the vision was too personal. Saturnine, however, is a different collection altogether.
Swedish industrial band Interlace told me in interview that they make music like a riddle, and that “If you create a riddle you don’t want everyone to solve it. Because then it would be too easy. But you don’t want no one to solve it. Because then it’s too hard.” Saturnine feels the same way.
When you view the photographs they feel potent without being in your face, they feel clear with the illuminating significance just out of reach. All this is made with her trademark streak of enthrallment with the dark. It seems Wawi has finally found a way to let us share the visions in her head (or gut) without compromising her love of symbols, story or atmosphere. Or giving too much away.
While the Silverlens Gallery is probably the most clandestinely located art house in the metro (where Saturnine runs until Feb 17) it’ll be worth it to go just to see the evocative photo of the artist on bare feet in a shallow pool of water with paper boats scattered around, lengthily titled “The Return (After the Storm)/ The Traveller, Always Alone.”
“The seed of Saturnine,” writes Wawi, “came about in a period when I was seized by the mystery about the passage of time. Of looking at framed photos, friends come and gone, missing places, of looking at the mirror at 3AM. It all came to me that every moment is fragile, temporal, fleeting.”
Two of my favorites are “Voyage Solitaire (An Ode to Beginnings)”, where a sullen Hank Palenzuela (bassist for Agaw Agimat) sits amid a gloom of books and cards, and the mix of anxiety, waiting and vain romance that is “Her Greatest Fear is That She May Never See You Again.”
In Saturnine Wawi has created images of universal emotion capsulated by people and not-people (creatures who look like people?) that surprisingly share the same woes, dilemmas and delights.
“Pretty pictures alone does not fine art photography make,” she explains. “Pretty pictures you can hang on your living room is fine but you got to expect more if it's called `fine art.’ I'm cool with décor but I'm more for those images that poke at the head or heart, images that reflect the mind of its maker, the vision of the artist, the voice of conviction behind the works. Then, that to me is `fine art photography.’ ”
People will never doubt Wawi for her art not being honest or sincere again. Meaning and power resides in them. Look at the photos. Solve the riddle.
Silverlens Gallery is located at 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City.For inquiries, please email manage@silverlensphoto.com or call (+632) 816 0044
1 comment:
free sample prescription for viagra cheapest place to buy viagra online non prescription viagra buy viagra in london england low cost viagra viagra buy price iframe buy viagra online uk free trial of viagra viagra on line mexican viagra fda on viagra viagra results viagra liver damage what is generic viagra
Post a Comment