The Davao-based artist incorporates vivid colors and textures into her works, creating complex patterns and accents that highlight nature’s duality.
Katrina Gaisano-Lee, known as “Tanya” to loved ones, began her artistic journey in 2014. With only a black pen, which the self-taught artist used to create simple patterns that would be the basis of further experimentation and exploration.
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She then began incorporating bright swathes of color and an assortment of textures into her work using different mediums, such as acrylic and ink. These techniques would eventually become a part of her signature artistic expression, one that’s deeply inspired by her personal experiences and travels abroad.
After years of exposing herself to the global art scene, Lee would eventually create an inimitable style that deviates from conventional painting techniques. Her works showcase a distinctive selection of abstract elements, vibrant and subdued colors, and intricate patterns that seamlessly meld traditional and contemporary sensibilities.
The creative behind “Pen Art” will be holding her very first solo exhibition entitled Habi ng Kalikasan, which will open at The Crucible Gallery in SM Megamall on May 2 and run until May 14.
The Duality of the World
Lee’s Dualism series grapples with the contradicting qualities that exist within a common medium. It explores the paradoxical aspects of nature, which harbors a multitude of dualities like light and darkness, solids and liquids, hot and cold, wet and dry, and the like.
While these elements contrast and even oppose each other, they still manage to co-exist and create the world in which we live in—with all the beauty and ugliness that resides within it.
In the diptych, Lee uses local weaves to add depth and texture to her pieces, with elements rooted in Mindanaoan culture. The pieces in the series contain golden sunrises, silver moonlight, stormy clouds, flat grasslands, pristine blue waters, lush green forests, and red mineral-rich mountains, among many other visual motifs.
Through her works, Lee hopes to bring awareness and appreciation to the dualities of the natural world, and by extension, the dualities we will inevitably encounter in life.
The artist’s first solo exhibition entitled Habi ng Kalikasan opens at The Crucible Gallery in SM Megamall on May 2 and runs until May 14. You can see more of Tanya Lee’s art and updates on her official Facebook page and Instagram.
Photo via Instagram @tanyagaisanolee_art.
