Arnica Acantilado’s show serves as a reminder and stresses the importance of taking action to protect the only world we have.
This is an excerpt from Lifestyle Asia’s May 2023 Issue.
Arnica Acantilado didn’t plan to be an artist. She took painting up as a hobby when she was young and actually took up Architecture at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. The Philippine born talent was actually encouraged by friends and family to improve on her art skills when they saw her potential. Her hard work paid off when she started to receive recognition for her painting skills.
Acantilado was a finalist for the 39th Shell Student Art Competition and was awarded Outstanding Student in the field of visual arts in 2006. A year later, she was a finalist at the GSIS Painting Competition and got second place at the Eyebank Painting Competition and two years later, she bagged the grand prize for the PLDT-DPC Telephone Directory Cover, 22nd Visual Art National Competition. She was also a finalist for the Metrobank Art and Design Excellence MADE, Painting Category.
After joining several group exhibitions, she had her first major exhibition at J Studio in 2015 followed by another solo a year later at Pinto Art Museum. Affect Effect at Art Verite Gallery is her eight and latest solo exhibition. Most of her works depict animals or people dressed up in animal clothing. Arnica Acantilado seems to seek out the symbolic power of the natural world to speak about human life and experience. Part of the appeal of her art is that there remains something in each human that is primeval and untamed.
Her latest solo exhibition highlights the urgency of the climate crisis and how it affects the planet’s life and everything within it. Art Critic Carlomar Arcangel Daoana, in his exhibition notes on Affect Effect, states that her “compositional approach speaks of chaos, destruction, and indeterminacy. In a suite of works, the artist portrays a child—wearing a red jacket and cartoon character hat—as the protagonist facing a world that has burned, symbolizing the consequences of our actions. The posture of the child suggests defiance, urging the viewer to confront the realities of the climate crisis.”
Read more by purchasing a copy of the Lifestyle Asia May 2023 magazine via SariSari.shopping or select newsstands in National Bookstore and Fully Booked. Subscribe to the E-Magazine via Readly, Magzter, and Press Reader.
Photos courtesy of Art Verité.
