Rodel Tapaya is an inheritor of strong social realist and surrealist traditions in Philippine art. In light of his position of being in the middle of two seemingly contrasting lineages, his paintings often resort to finding parallels between fable and politics to formulate a critique of recent history. The fish, which has figured prominently in his past paintings, is a shape-shifting creature and seldom a human being cursed by the gods for some mischief or a bizarre accident caused by man’s avarice. The title “Turning the Tide” refers, on one level, to the literal sea change that affects Philippine aquaculture, also known as “red tide”, that turns famous Manila clams and mussels poisonous. On another level, the phrase refers to the authoritarian turn in Philippine politics, as fish heads (wearing business suits in Tapaya’s previous paintings) stand in for politicians and bureaucrats who swim with the tide rather than serve as “fiscalizers” of the powers that be. In this painting, the wheel of fortune is held by disembodied limbs (the hands of time?) and the background on the lower right features the outlines of the balustrades of a Filipino style mansion, suggesting that the scene is set in a house of authority. “Turning the Tide” is thus Tapaya channeling an old master treatment of a favorite subject: an oblique but damning portrait of strongmen who have animated Southeast Asian politics.
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