Embracing My Roots
Oil on Canvas with Installation of Ratan Chest full of pictures with Photography portraits, 2012
Painting Sizes: 182.88 cm x 121.92 cm (72 in x 48 in)
Ratan Chest: 106.68 cm x 91.44 cm (42 in x 36 in)
Photography Portraits: 25.4 cm x 20.32 cm (10 in x 8 in)
I have always been fascinated and curious about the wonders of femininity. Mainly because it is something that I'm not. And secondly, in my household, I was brought up by a lot of different feminine figures.
In this series of artworks, I subjected women to render my attraction and respect to their existence. As part of my own cultural roots. The women represented in this series are important to me because I was raised in a household with a lot of women figures. And I want to focus on two, they are my mothers. My biological mother Marlene and my adoptive mother Julita.
I focus on these two women who have a different perspective in life and ways of upbringing and molding their children into adulthood that made their characteristics, iconic to me. This may be because of their different backgrounds and the way they were brought up in their own respective social environment. It exposed me to different beliefs and values that helped me understand what kind of individual I want to be part of, in the society we move in.
Embracing My Roots is an installation of 4 paintings that is unstretched from the bastador hanged on a wall parallel next to photographs placed inside a ratan baol that is full of old photo albums that share stories of Marlene’s and Julita’s life that reflect the idea of coexisting deviances and norms. This series shares their journey in life, parting away from the norms and setting up their own beliefs and values while the other is set on traditions, norms, and values.
