Published in collaboration with Arndt Agency / Matthias Arndt.
Rodel Tapaya (b. Montalban, Philippines, 1980; lives and works in Bulacan, Philippines) is one of the most promising visual artists of his generation. His prominent position on the Southeast Asian scene was confirmed in 2011, when he received the renowned Foundation Signature Art Prize.
European audiences and the Western art world, by contrast, have hardly taken notice of his paintings, sculptures, and installations. So this book--a survey of the complex narrative oeuvre he has built over the past eight years--has long been overdue. Our lives and thinking are under ever-growing pressure to adapt to an incessant flow of jarringly inconsistent information. Tapaya has honed the skill of isolating particular aspects and arranging them in dramatic combinations. At the same time, he seems to view the world through the eyes of an ancient storyteller. His works explore the meanings of the dynamic and inexhaustible symbolism of archaic Philippine myths and legends and connect them to the modern world. Rodel Tapaya's paintings--many are in large formats, almost like murals--cast a spell with their fascinating wealth of forms and motifs, but they always also blaze trails through the undergrowth of everyday life.
