Nona Garcia

Sotheby's Hong Kong, October 4 2008, Lot 13

Private Asian Collection

The work is in overall good condition. Both paintings are free of discoloration, the paint layers are intact, and the canvases are taut. Under ultraviolet light inspection there are no signs of restoration. Un-framed, on a stretcher.
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The monumental two-panel portraiture entitled Dialogue is an important work in Nona Garcia’s impressive repertoire. Completed in 2006 at a time when the artist first begun experimenting with this particular type of paintings, the chosen subject matter for this remarkable work is understandably an intimate one. Though the two canvases are not bound by any physical hinge, their juxtaposition implies a certain linkage between them. As though each is conscious and contemplative of the other’s presence, the work forms a collective portraiture of the duo. Depicted in Dialogue are Nona’s father and mother. Their marriage implied by formalist aspects of the composition, such as the orientation of their poses and the symmetry of their shapes.

Painted in stark realism, the backs of the two sitters become the frontispiece here, teasing the viewer with the slightest turn of their heads, as though they were sharing a secret whisper. Their invisible exchange, as suggested by the title, excludes the viewer from further comprehension; her brushstrokes metamorphosed into an act of quiet concealment. Deliberately omitting any trace of immediate identification, Nona thus reverses the conventional constituents of portrait paintings. Without the expressions of a face or likeness of a gesture, she rids the typical signifiers that would otherwise facilitate the process of recognition. Dialogue exemplifies Nona’s meditation on the nature and tradition of portraitures.

Virtuously a portrait in its own right, Nona captures all the nuances to bring out the essence of persona in Dialogue. Hints of narratives are revealed through the intricacies of particular physical properties: the affirmative stance of her father, the soft creases on her mother’s neck, the gentle slanting of shoulders, the delicate material of cotton shirts, and so on. Through the isolation of these precise details, Nona conjures the poignancy of a metaphysical existence beyond mere appearances. And through the confrontation with her oftentimes complex feelings towards her various subjects, new narratives are born to animate her seemingly objective photorealistic documentations. Her ongoing body of work is constantly challenged by the rigorous investigation into her own personal history and memory. The transformation of the commonplace is an important facet of Nona’s artworks.

Furthermore, in Nona’s paintings, we notice a beautiful collapse of hierarchy, where photography and painting reconcile with one another. The process of her art making has always been involved with photographs, either as a medium or as a visual aid for making her larger paintings. Nona’s continuous fixation on capturing the ineffable dispositions of an object, place or being is evident in her body of works, spanning from x-ray light boxes and photo-assemblages to oil paintings depicting barren landscapes, abandoned spaces, car crashes, portraitures and more. Nona introduces novel ways of looking. 

 Filipina artist Nona Garcia is a recipient of the 13 Artists Award in 2003 and a grand prizewinner of the Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Art Award in Singapore in 2000. While her works have been exhibited extensively in the Philippines, they have gained international presence in major art hubs such as Hong Kong, Japan, Milan and Berlin. Working predominantly in the figurative manner, her works are as cerebral and they are visually striking.