Mark Justiniani Goes 3D

Mark Justiniani, "Impasse"

As he prepared for this exhibit, Mark Justiniani would wake up excited every morning. “A little nervous too”, he added, “as if I were a young artist just doing his first show!” Five notebooks and his iPad had been filled with scribbles in black ink. The sketches served as studies and ruminations, his preparations for the series of works now making their debut at Finale Art Gallery.

Mark, one of Manila’s most bankable artists, made his name in the late 1990s as a stalwart of Salingpusa, a group championed by Dr. Joven Cuanang’s Boston Gallery. He paints narratives that draw on our Filipino identity, observations on traditions and everyday life often told with a surrealist bent. He frequently employs visual puns, occasionally incorporating texts to play against his images. Last year, Mark took his practice to a new direction, eschewing paintings for large-scale, whimsical sculptures in his February 2010 show, Malikmata. He continues along the same lines for his new works, this time opting for smaller pieces.

Phantom Limb, the title of Mark’s exhibit, takes its name from a condition whereby amputees continue to feel sensation in an appendage that is no longer there. This affliction illustrates the paradox that the artist explores in this show, the interplay between illusion and reality. “Do we really get to experience things as they are, or only as they appear to us?”

The question serves as the premise for Mark’s pieces, 28 of them laid out in Finale’s capacious space. Mark has worked with resin, painted wood, coconut shells, and mirrors to fabricate dioramas, self-lit tableaux that measure about the same size as small computer monitors. All of the pieces keep to Mark’s hallmarks. They sport witty titles and comment on Philippine history and culture with a wry sense of humor.

Those of us familiar with Mark’s pastel pieces recognize that these works feel like those vignettes rendered in 3D. My favorite one is Manananggol, a revolutionary hero brandishing the flag whose upper torso floats over a sleeping prey, a play on the manananggal of lore. Palakpak has a resin hand resting on a bed of artificial grass reflected on a mirror behind it. The infinite reflections make it look as though we see hands applauding. Mark turns somber in Dispersal. He depicts a pair of military boots at the center of a scattered arrangement of slippers.

With an exhibit of this nature, it is easy to see why “fun” is the operative word that Mark uses to describe this new show. “The exhibit is playful”, he admits. However, “it will also have reflections on life.”

I thought that these works brought us a brand new, exciting dimension to Mark Justiniani. Congratulations!

A version of this post appears in the October 2010 issue of Town And Country Philipppines. Visit www.facebook.com/townandcountryph

Phantom Limb runs from 6 to 27 October 2011 at Finale Art Gallery, Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Pasong Tamo, Makati City. Phone (632) 8132310 or visit www.finaleartfile.com

Thank you to Tin-Aw Art Gallery and Yorkie Gomez for some of the photos I used in this post.