MANILA, Philippines - In the discourse of technology, the phrase ?state of the art? refers to the highest stage of development achieved by a scientific field, technique or device. Its origins lie in the ancient Greeks? conception of technology as functional art forms.
For artist Alvin Villaruel, painting is both a reflexive and discursive exercise where the visual examines the mechanical, indeed, where art reflects on the state of the art.
Villaruel, a Fine Arts major at the University of the Philippines, is obsessed with technology, its complex evolution and profound social impact.
In ?Vessels,? his latest solo exhibit in West Gallery at SM Megamall (tel. 4110336), Villaruel casts his brush on technologies of mobility, carriers of peril and promise, and the journeys men and machines take together.
Villaruel paints these reflections in photorealistic style, strategically diffusing backgrounds or portions of images to depict motion or highlight perspective.
The artist locates his imagery in the past, often sourced from vintage photographs published in the National Geographic, thus rendering them inherently nostalgic but, at the same time, irretrievable.
For Villaruel, the state of the art is at best momentary and at worst artificial and illusionary. Today?s cutting-edge, after all, is tomorrow?s museum piece, a mere footnote in the history of human excess.
And so, while Villaruel?s pieces are shrouded in nostalgia, they are implicitly counter-romantic testaments to feeble experiments.
?Walking in Recline,? for example, showing a man in a suit in an odd-looking, human-powered vehicle circa 1950s is the artist?s satirical depiction of a foible in automotive history. All dressed up, the fast and the curious, it seems, has nowhere to go.
Direct contrasts
In the series ?Our Home in the Sky,? Villaruel presents a large diptych, two paintings that are one and the same really but for their orientation and inverted color hues. Here, a gigantic shell-like balloon seems frozen in midair, dwarfing a house that lies in the middle of nowhere. Taken together, the two paintings are direct contrasts, a positive and negative binary that metaphorically conveys technology?s innate duality.
At the heart of Villaruel?s body of work is a rich philosophical discourse that rejects technological determinism. There is a post-humanistic tenor in the artist?s imagery; human figures are often either incidental in the overall composition or paradoxically symbolic of a less than symbiotic anthro-mechanical relationship.
In ?Cakewalk with Atlantis,? depicting a lone astronaut precariously perched on the side of a space shuttle, Villaruel likens our engagement with technology to an acrophobic dance of wits or a hazardous balancing act in uncharted terrain.
In ?Contemplating the Future? the artist portrays a boy deep in thought, sitting on what appears from a distance as a big, rusty mechanical ball. The ball is actually an ocean mine, a vintage weapon of mass destruction that has been washed ashore.
In this painting, Villaruel masterfully renders the irony of the moment: The boy is sitting on a time bomb contemplating a future that is already doomed.
