Filipino contemporary artist Patricia Perez Eustaquio's art style transcends the categories of fine art, crafts, décor, and fashion. Using everyday materials, her practice includes elaborately shaped canvases and fabric-draped sculptures.
Read MoreBorn in Cebu in 1977, Patricia Perez Eustaquio's education took her from the Philippines to Trieste, Italy in 1995. She studied at the Collegio del Mondo Unito del'Adriatico completing a Certificate in World Cultures in 1997. Returning to Manila, she completed a BFA in Painting at the University of the Philippines, graduating Magnum Cum Laude in 2001.
Eustaquio's thesis work involved creating a pair of canvas shoes that she wore on a walk around the city, documenting the resulting marks left on their soles. The artist is now renowned for this exploration of often overlooked objects, in which she embraces the marginalised language of craft and design. Eustaquio states in a 2020 interview, 'as an artist, my work proposes a loose equation of things that I believe have been ignored.'
Sculpture and installation are an enduring foundation of Patricia Perez Eustaquio's practice. She fashions them from everyday materials like fabrics, lace, resin, cardboard, wood, rattan brass, and glass.
Eustaquio's sculptural practice began with works like Psychogenic Fugue (2008) and The Sprinkling and the Pall (2008). Shrouding household objects with silk or lace, Eustaquio then coats the folds with resin before removing the original object to create a ghostly, shell-like form. Later series like 'Endless Summer' (2020) and 'Figure Babel' (2019) continue to explore mixed-media textile forms.
Wrought works made of materials like metal, plastic, and glass also appear in Patricia Perez Eustaquio's repertoire. Works like The Future That Was (Reflections) (2013) present a figurative, wireframe outline. Untitled (Spears) (2016) presents a series of white, gold-trimmed spears topped with plastic plants.
Patricia Perez Eustaquio's paintings extend beyond the square pictorial frame. Semi-abstracted, Patricia Perez Eustaquio's pictures present imagery of forgotten subjects, detritus, and decaying objects. In this way, they act as an investigative re-visitation of the genre of still-life painting, often denigrated within fine arts as the realm of 'Sunday painters'.
For her 2016 show Black Dust at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York, Eustaquio presented a series of drawings in graphite with traces of gold leaf. The rock-like formations in these images reference the textures and forms of the wilted flowers and coagulated paint that had accumulated in the artist's studio. Whether flowers, a dead bird, or cuts of meat, the imagery in Eustaquio's paintings resemble shadows or fragments, reflecting the nature of memory and perceptions of objects.
Inspired by digital photos, Eustaquio's later 'Boom' paintings (2018–2019) present a more sculptural assemblage of textiles and painting on shaped metal panels.
Textiles also comprise a key part of Patricia Perez Eustaquio's art practice. In works such as An Unraveling (Conversation Among Ruins, After Francisco) (2018) and the 'Translations' series (2020–ongoing), the artist 'translates' paintings by famous Filipino painters into tapestries through an abstractive process.
In 2016, the artist was commissioned by Palais de Tokyo in Paris to make a site-specific installation for the Métopes, four architectural niches in one of the Palais most frequented galleries. Titled That Mountain is Coming (2016), Patricia Perez Eustaquio's contribution to the space comprises four organically shaped composites of graphite drawings, textiles, and painted metal that extend beyond their rectangular frames.
Patricia Perez Eustaquio artworks can be found in several public and private collections, including Singapore Art Museum and the Central Bank of the Philippines.
Patricia Perez Eustaquio's solo exhibitions include Conversation Among Ruins, Mind Set Art Centre, Taipei (2018); The Mountain is Coming, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016); The Future That Was, Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Manila (2013); Dear Sweet Filthy World, Silverlens, Manila (2010); Split Seam Stress, Ayala Museum, Manila (2003).
Patricia Perez Eustaquio's group exhibitions include The Hybridity and Dynamism of the Contemporary Art of the Philippines, Hansae Yes24 Foundation, Seoul (2019); The Vexed Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila (2015); The Philippine Contemporary: To Scale the Past and the Possible, Metropolitan Museum of Manila (2013); Thrice Upon A Time: A Century of Story in the Art of the Philippines, Singapore Art Museum (2009).
Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2021
