The Intimacy of Slowness

BY JAY BAUTISTA | My all-time favorite moment is looking out the window when it is raining outside and the streets are wet. There is something appealing about it.

It’s the same feeling I get while gazing at Keiye Tuazon’s swimming-pool images. Her canvases swim with life. They have an ease about them, a fluidity, a calmness.

Ongoing at the 1/of Gallery, the exhibit title "Welcome Interruptions" could mean many things pertaining to Keiye and the directions she wants to pursue.

Keiye tells me:

“My fascination with water for my art started when I was in college. I used the image of a swimming pool to show personal space for a photography plate in Prof. Bobby Chabet's class. I was captivated by water's unpredictability, its movements. There is also something unreal about being submerged in water: The replications of images below the surface mirror issues of identity. My works are underwater images of people and objects that float, weave through, or swim around."

Keiye grew up surrounded by people who loved art deeply. Where art was on everybody's lips and came out of everybody's ears. Angono’s history of creative arts dates back to the 19th-century religious painters Juancho Senson and Pedro Piñon to National Artist Carlos "Botong" Francisco and the Angono School, to which Keiye's father and 150 painters of their generation belong.

On top of that, Keiye is married to trailblazing artist Wire Tuazon, with whom she helped organize "Surrounded By Water," an artspace where some of the most exciting young artists exhibited. (Think of Louie Cordero, Jason Oliveira, Lena Cobangbang, Geraldine Javier, Nona Garcia and the Ching brothers).

Having observed Keiye’s growth as an artist for more than a decade now, I must admit I have underestimated the painting prowess of this girl who has blossomed into a versatile painter. Mind you, after a five-year hiatus, she still holds that promise.

The comeback girl states:

“This underwater series started almost a decade ago, and it attempts to recapture images in a different perspective and explore the possibilities of the subject. Parang kasama ka nila sa ilalim ng tubig na sumasabay lumangoy sa kanila. Minsan you need to breathe.”

Keiye’s art explores slowness in relation to the fast pace of our times. Modern and postmodern modes of living have taken over not only space but also our conception of time. This is where Keiye's underwater images seems most effective in reminding us about.

She explains:

“The moving water serves as an element of defamiliarization, producing an ambiguity between the real and the unreal, thus setting new terms of encountering reality.”

Delan Robillos, co-owner of 1/of Gallery says, “I like Keiye's art. It is very interesting. I think she is a very consistent artist. In our art space, we like to give opportunities to young blood with great promise."

Keiye tells me:

“I want to explore more my underwater series, and I want to continue my work about twins (a subject I had worked on). I want also to do paintings that would investigate personal space, memory and childhood experiences.”

Summer is over. Take a dip for one last time, the water is fine.

1/of Gallery is located at 2/f Serendra, The Fort, Taguig.