No other object has captured the imagination of Rodel Tapaya more than the typewriter, an industrial age machine dedicated solely to the crafting of words on print. The painting studios of Rodel Tapaya and Marina Cruz in Bulacan (the province bordering Manila to the north) hold an impressive collection of vintage typewriters that serve as their model and artistic material (both have employed typewriting as a painting technique). Therefore, the painting “Words Are Weapons” can be seen as a double portrait of Rodel and Marina who hold writing and writers in high esteem and constantly engage literature as a resource for the visualization of their ideas. The diaphanous silhouettes of two human figures in the middle of the canvas merge on a single hand that punches the keys of a clearly outlined typewriter on a pedestal. From their other arm grows the anahaw or palmyra palm leaf, which is commonly used as ground for etching mythical text (such as the Ramayana). The round and cursive design of the letters of many Southeast Asian scripts is an adaptation to the brittleness of dried palm manuscripts by their early users as angular letters could tear the panels apart. Palm leaves are also commonly used in weaving thatched roofs in Southeast Asia. Through this symbol, the painting invokes not only that words are the weapons of artists, but that words can also build a home.

Rodel Tapaya

Rodel Tapaya (b. 1980) was born in Montalban, the Philippines.

At the heart of Rodel Tapaya’s work is his ongoing amalgamation of folk narrative and contemporary reality within the framework of memory and history. Utilizing a range of media, from large acrylic on canvases to under-glass painting, traditional crafts, diorama, and drawing, Tapaya filters his observations of the world through folktales and pre-colonial historical research, creating whimsical montages of his characters.

Tapaya was awarded the coveted Top Prize in the Nokia Art Awards, which allowed him to pursue intensive drawing and painting courses at Parsons School of Design in New York and the University of Helsinki in Finland. In 2011, he won a landmark achievement for a Filipino artist by receiving the Signature Art Prize given by the Asia-Pacific Breweries Foundation and the Singapore Art Museum. He was also among the Thirteen Artists Awardee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2012. His work is held in museum and institutional collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Australia, Tokyo Mori Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Philippines Bencab Museum, Philippines Ateneo Art Gallery, Philippines Pinto Art Museum, Central Bank of the Philippines, etc.
 

Lender: Tang Contemporary Art