"DEAD CAN DANCE"

Tala Gallery presents “Dead Can Dance”, a one- man exhibition featuring a new collection of works by rising contemporary Filipino artist Andres Barrioquinto The show runs from February 13 to March 8, 2009.

Dead can Dance explore the gradual transition point of Barrioquinto’s art from his cubist edged and somehow patterned renditions towards its binding marriage with figurative realism. It is also bound to showcase a larger set of works, which features an impressive set of lifeless doll-like apparitions that somehow dance floating in an eerie, dead ballet of patterned illusions. According to the artist, he strongly believes that the human body is a container; some are like dead, dancing vessels of flesh afloat in evil awaiting its consumption.

Tala Gallery is located at #100 Scout De Guia St., Kamuning, Quezon City, Philippines. For information, contact the gallery at tel. +632 441 1267 or +632 401 0337, by e-mail at info@talagallery.com.ph, or visit the website at www.talagallery.com.ph.

For a short span of less than ten years, Barrioquinto’s art has already molded itself into a religion. A religion not of gods, but of emotionally masticated figures, regurgitated faces echoing pain, and an orchestration of disgorged backgrounds bleeding into screaming, eyeless images existing from a world far beyond the edge of human perception. And after being abandoned by the artist to explore a kaleidoscope of genres inside him, a small cult of followers wolfed down his distorted portrayal of human misanthropy and reconstructed its broken pieces to fit into the varied classifications of their own art. Now, on his latest one-man exhibition “dead can dance”, the artist returns to reclaim back the title that the people had given him, one step at a time.

Dead can dance is a visual narrative of “dead men” unknowingly trudging the world of the living. These godless creatures are considered dead of soul, but are alive and existing in the doomed, sinful world of flesh. According to the artist, the human body, which is the most sacred temple of the soul, is considered dead and empty without the spirit of Jesus Christ. Surprisingly religious, his works are presented in a complete bipolar contrast, with the technical execution being often morbid and psychologically disturbing. The artist stresses that his paintings merely reflect the corrupted reality that we fail to see: Sin deception, death, decay, and even the complete abandonment of faith. With his skillful hands he creates a separate world of anti-illusions to counter the delusive utopia that the present, social norms had carved into our minds. These respawned images are not meant to scare the audiences but simply, all it aims is to mirror both the sins of the flesh and soul, and the irreversible decree of damnation that it can cause to both. Overall, “Dead can Dance” forces a strong emphasis into the clichéd battle between light and darkness. However, it is not of men against men, but of man against his own mirror self.
“As an artist, or basically as a human being, your greatest enemy at the end of the day is no one still but yourself.” Andres Barrioquinto quotes to end the interview.