Darwin Sy Antipolo

​i never became a scientist like a sir Isaac though i fancied myself to become one at some point when i was growing up. who doesn't? instead, i ended up being a marketer, of the digital kind. now, i'm reinventing myself as a sort of visual artists of the digital type. not much luck there, yet.

so i hit the books (wikipedia and google for me, thank you!) and started to learn the basics of art. colour and the theory around it seems to be the progeny of many art discourses. three points on color that i'm exploring now that will likely impact my art practice.

a. colour draws out emotions
b. colour is a symbolic system
c. colour can heal

** been ages since i've penned anything here.  thought it might be worth starting the habit than in other social networks sites. :P **
----

I find that making art has its healing qualities.  I paint when I'm anxious and in a bit of a funk. Somehow it lessens that emotional state and redirects my attention. Not in an escapist sense but in a more positive attitude.  I also see myself picking up brushes when I'm feeling joyful and celebratory. No, I don't end up on the opposite spectrum of the field! Thank goodness! Somehow the 'busyness' of making art seem to heighten and lengthen that euphoric state. Then when you are in the zone, many can appreciate this, everything seem to be immaterial and at that same time connected.  Art does have it's therapeutic quality. No academic journal need to convince me.

I went on to investigate further what makes that me-time and the act of painting affect my general well-being. 

I've found myself a student of abstract expressionism.  Yes, that style they say even a 5-year old can do.  It might be the materiality of it all - those thick impasto,  silken linseed oil, tackiness of glue. Then, it could be the gesture itself. Not being constricted with the norm or painting, you do a Pollock here, brood about a stroke like Rothko and even mash up images like de Kooning. Liberating. Some say it is the process of that might be the root of the therapeutic quality of painting or art making in general.  But I would like to think its the color or colour if you are from the other side of the world. 

So I here I am.  Digital pen in hand, iPad on the lap, twiddling with an app, I commune with the art Gods every day to create images that vibrate and reach out to my (hopefully yours too) core.  There is something regenerative, empowering and affirming when I wash my eyes with color.  Yes, it is technologically or more so artificially created images. The reality is you and I likely to consume these images through our phone, tablet or desktop. More musings on this some other day. 

You can see some of these digital images here. 

here's the story behind my second attempt to create a smallish sculpture using terracotta. 

like my paintings, i don't have a preconceived idea of what i will do.  the form does come out after sparring with this new material. 

i think my subsconscious brought out quite a recent story of a dear friend who is winning her war against breast cancer. i look and turn and squint at the image. it is eve.  

she emerges triumphant. she reaches out towards the skies where before it was to raise her hand in abject surrender to a machine that confirmed her worst fears. the disease is brutal with that sharp, penetrating cut in the chest but her body is whole again. the mind is willful. the faith stronger. she sees with all senses open to the many possibilities. 

it could also be that my mind is playing a trick with my hands and wanted me to create something else. or tell my eye to see a different image. could be. but for now study 002 is eve and all who are in her mould.