MANILA, Philippines - One would think that with her newly found success Geraldine Javier could well afford to take a much-deserved break.

But the 38-year old artist, whose works have recently registered outstanding prices in major Asian auction houses Christie?s, Sotheby?s and Borobudur, has yet to find time to engage in her alternative passions which include farming and landscaping.

?I?ve never really stopped painting since I started as an artist,? she says.

With a high demand for her work and several shows scheduled way into next year, the artist is a veritable prisoner in her Sampaloc home where she paints hours, even days, on end.

But Javier is no stranger to the pressure of long working hours, having earned a BS Nursing degree from the University of the Philippines and landing a place on the Top 10 of the boards before eventually enrolling in the State University?s Fine Arts programs.

Now, as a leading figure in Philippine contemporary art, Javier takes on the cliché burden that comes with triumph: To whom much is given, much is expected.

?Mas mabusisi ako ngayon dahil kailangan mas maganda ?yung mga trabaho ko,? she explains.

As auctions become increasingly popular venues for the buying and selling of art, artists like Javier don?t really have much control over which of their works eventually end up on the auction block, and how much they are sold for. As such, she wants to make sure that every painting she does is worthy of a high appraisal.

Happy complication

?Masaya siyang problema,? Javier shares. ?I?m happy that people are starting to know my work. Masarap ?yung pakiramdam na hindi ka na mag-iisip kung may bibili ba ng trabaho mo.?

Like many of her peers, she has done her bit of the struggling-artist routine. At the start of her career, art patrons shied away from Javier?s works, finding them too pensive, too dark, too depressing.

Since then, Javier has held successive sold-out shows, and has bagged the top honors from the Cultural Center of the Philippines? Thirteen Artists Awards and Ateneo Art Awards. Today, there?s a long queue for her works, never mind if they come with her signature proclivity for the morbid and gloomy.

?Now when someone buys my work, iniisip ko tuloy kung binibili niya ?yung trabaho ko dahil gusto niya o dahil gagawin niyang investment para ibenta,? she says.

Javier has reason to worry. Lately, some of her earlier works have started resurfacing on the local market and are now being sold at ridiculously high prices.

Deviation and defiance

Javier, too, is cautious about pandering to the dictates of the market. In particular, she is wary of what she calls the ?auction look,? an aesthetic defined by preconceived notions of what will or will not do well on the auction block. Since her auction pieces were mostly rendered in her trademark photo-realistic ghoulish style, galleries and auctioneers are now clamoring for similar works.

Thus, in her new solo exhibit, ?Sampaloc Cave Paintings? opening tomorrow at The Podium, Javier momentarily abandons the macabre and takes a surprising but whimsical turn. On the surface, her new works serve as a brief deviation; at a deeper level, they signify the artist?s defiance against the commodification of art, wielding powerful allegories of entrapment and inevitable escape.

In ?Frog Splash,? toy cowboys and Indians scatter about in mayhem as overhead a marten threatens to pound them with its furry weight. From a safe distance, a boy crouches on the ground, bracing for the impact.

The painting is a cartoonish tableau that evokes Milan Trenc?s ?Night at the Museum? where dinosaurs come alive at night. Javier presents this piece in an oblique angle, suggesting a vantage point where the viewer herself, privy to these goings-on, becomes a willing participant to the pandemonium.

Javier continues her rare cheerful streak in ?Van Dogh Staring at Starry, Starry Sky,? featuring a dog on its back enraptured by the visual spectacle of aerial acrobatics. It is pure, idle pleasure rendered on canvas but one that is for the artist a forgone luxury.

Allegory of the cave

In branding her new works as ?cave paintings? Javier makes a clear allusion to Plato?s classic allegory of the cave in ?The Republic.? Plato posits that confinement shrouds our understanding of reality just as prisoners in a cave are likely to confuse shadows for their real significations.

In ?Blackbird Singing,? Javier paints a girl in an awkward position. Appearing to have fallen from the couch, she lies there as if frozen in wide-eyed catatonic state, oblivious to the birds feasting on her diet of junk food. Vertical patterns akin to color bars on a TV set divide this painting into two different but conjoined planes.

It is eerily reminiscent of that moment in Japanese history when hundreds of children succumbed to epileptic seizures after watching an episode of a popular animé program. In this piece, Javier seems to present the trinity of confinement, addiction and consumption as virtual entrapments with inevitable catastrophic consequences.

Narrative of Escape

Perhaps the most revealing insights Javier offers in this exhibit may be drawn from a series of three paintings titled ?City Mouse,? ?Self Portrait (Blue Moon),? and ?Country Mouse.? Envisioned as a triptych and laid out as though in a maze or obstacle course, these paintings appear more as a narrative of escape more than they are allegories of entrapment.

In this series, a deer appears lost in one frame against a background of suburban concrete. In the next frame, a hunter is hot in pursuit, his rifle ready for the kill. In the last frame, a man lies face down on the ground, presumably hit by an unseen assassin?s bullet.

This would have been a chilling story, were it not for Javier?s dark sense of humor. The hunted deer she designates as a self-portrait is no longer in the picture and we can safely assume she has managed to escape. She is, ultimately, the heroine who outwits the hunter in his own terrain.

?Sampaloc Cave Paintings? runs from June 24-July 7 at the Atrium, 2/L, The Podium, ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City. Call 8132310 or 8125034 or e-mail the author at nathrondina@gmail.com.