Louie Cordero Biography

Selected awards and exhibitions include: Finalist, Ateneo Art Award, (Presented in memory of Fernando Zobel de Ayala) (2005); Fangs, Fantoms, Mutagens, West Gallery, Philippines (2022); Garage Ecstasy Mutant Principles, Finale Art File, Philippines; Spectrum Noodle, Blanc Art Space, Philippines (2018); Free Phenomenon (with Kawayan De Guia), Drawing Room gallery, Philippines (2022); Bat Soup Painters (with Mariano Ching), Mospace Gallery, Philippines (2020).

There is always an air of ambiguity in the world created by Louie Cordero: a world that is often described as bizarre or riotous, and sometimes even grotesque or abject. In his paintings, sculptures, and installations Cordero uses anatomical innards, muscle tissue, veins, and eyeballs to construct a new, unclassifiable species that has evolved through forms, shapes, and patterns, and then juxtaposes them with iconographies from the current social milieu: the images of Catholicism, the relics of the so-called Third World (Southeast Asia and Africa), the air- brushed panels of the Manila jeepney, the stuntmen of lowbrow Filipino films, the primitivism of native crafts, and the localised narratives of Western Popular culture—from Hollywood imagery in shop signs and graffiti to the sanctification of American pop songs in run-down videoke bars.

Multiculturalism, kitsch, and pastiche have become trademarks for Filipino art, given that the country is not only a set of different islands with different dialects and traditions, but also a former colony of different imperial forces, starting with the Spaniards in the late sixteenth century to the Japanese in the middle of the twentieth century. It seems as if the average Filipino, who has been swamped to this day with a smorgasbord of influences, suffers from a certain horror vacui—a need to fill up the spaces because the nation itself is crowded with unresolved histories.

Most of the artists preceding Cordero portrayed the energy of Manila through its socio-historical context, attempting with their paintings to expose political oppression by using symbolisms of poverty, imperialism, and consumerism, usually concocted in a gloomy or satirical atmosphere. Cordero, however, deviates from these templates to produce his own rendition of the city, celebrating it in bright, neon colours with depictions of its uber-mundane, almost absurdist moments.

In terms of composition, in recent years Cordero has slowly deviated from a purely figurative and symbolist portrayal to more constructivist and abstract forms. The result is a new category of images that is entirely his own: a juxtaposition of grotesque, narrative elements with cubist and constructivist forms, a combination of primitivism and formalism, a hodgepodge of whimsical dreamscapes and tropical landscapes.

Through his art, Cordero continues to assimilate the ways of the naïve, the native, and the lowbrow together with the sensuous allure of affluence and progress. His characteristic mélange of forms, uncategorised slew of shapes, and snippets from real life become the symbiosis of good and bad taste, of sanctity and irreverence, and of humour and seriousness, which can be seen as an apt reflection of the current state of Filipino society. For as much as these ventures may result in what most of us would call difficult and sometimes shocking imagery, in Cordero's world these are the succinct narratives of memory and fantasy, and a faithfulness to the history of his motherland.