In Odette Cagandahan’s Play Money (2010, 34x33 inches, oil and paper on canvas), the child makes money an integral part of its life, but not for its real essence. Carefully watching children’s casual glances, to them, money is just another toy, or another means to achieve a dream, a mental desire, or even a moment of happiness. Children gather little information. They leave no memory in mind. In her paintings, the artist Cagandahan tries to “capture more of their personality than their physical features.” It is in the uniqueness of gesture, the facial contortion, and in the innate expressions in her paintings that her audiences see the casualness of the child’s attitude toward life itself.
In Derrick Macutay’s work Dream Flight of Icarus (2010, 36x24 inches, acrylic on canvas), the artist tells us “how the child in each one of us wants to soar free and high but due to limitations and restrictions, we can only live to fly in borrowed time.” Life is short and being human does not allow us to fulfill our desires, specially our fantasies. It is only in the mind that we can do so. As with all the creations of the artist, Macutay’s works “infuse humanness in techno,” using his own words. In my own words, it is a matter of putting back humanity in technology, because after all technology was invented by humans, for their own purpose.
In Noel Solis’s Young Dystopian (2010, 48x36 inches, oil on canvas), the artist declares “In a place where there seems no hope, you can still find a real face of real happiness. For this kind of child, anywhere can be a good and nice playground.” The child at play, or for that matter at work, environment simply does not matter. Any place is home to them.
