The Awkward Inevitable

These paintings are an homage to my childhood in the tropical strangeness of my beloved islands of the Philippines. For some reason, growing up watching obscure, lo-budget, B-movie Filipino movies in corrosive yet bittersweet Manila greatly shaped my creative practice in New York where I currently live. I also remember when watching these movies alone during sweltering, humid afternoons on VHS is my knack of rewinding scenes I particularly like. Once in awhile I would come across a paused scene that would capture my interest–that uniquely “awkward” moment when the frame blurs the line between film and painting, or perhaps a beautiful yet always fleeting dream; that particular frame of a second when the elements seem to collide or the figures fade into obscurity, melding with the background and vice versa where time and space ultimately stood still.