ARNDT presents the inclusion of Rodel Tapaya among its exhibiting artists. The renowned Filipino painter is slated to hold his solo exhibition entitled, The Ladder to Somewhere, at its spaces in the Gillman Barracks in Singapore. The exhibition will revolve around the intersections between disparate realms and notions of the earthworld and skyworld and its mortal and immortal inhabitants. Tapaya will be doing what he does best in referencing Philippine mythology, folktales, and legends and their overlaps with history by linking fact and fantasy from different sources with shared themes or subjects.
Rodel Tapaya was born in 1980 in Montalban, Rizal, situated a few kilometers away from Manila. After winning an international painting tilt, he pursued intensive drawing and painting courses at Parsons School of Design in New York and from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki prior to graduating from the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines. Since then, he has had several solo exhibitions hosted in Berlin, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, and Manila. He has also been represented in several international art fairs and expositions. Tapaya is best known in Singapore for being the winner of the prestigious Asia-Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize given by the Singapore Art Museum in 2011. Since 2008, he has lived and worked in the province of Bulacan, the Philippines.
Tapaya’s works, mostly depicting a set of narratives, are filled with alluring colors and vibrant figures. For his folklore paintings, Tapaya has explored and studied Philippine legends and mythologies for more than eight years. In one of his large acrylic on canvas work entitled, Like a bird that leaves its nest is a man who leaves his home, Tapaya ponders on the theme of flight and connects this with ideas of self-assertion. It tackles moving away from comfort zones towards courage zones to achieve certain life goals. The main image is that of Pangudyawon, a man who, like Icarus, wished to become a bird so that he can escape an unfortunate situation. Inset is the story of the star girl who went to earth to bathe when a man took her wings and is then forced to live as the wife of a mortal. We are also presented a depiction of a man who was born with just his head and is helped through life by birds.
Image: © Rodel Tapaya, ARNDT
