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Anthony Palo’s canvass is a metaphorical petri dish widly teeming with an odd assortment of creatures and cretins re-imagined from Oz, comic books, manga and anime. It’s where the whimsical mingle with the surreal, and the bug-eyed sip tea and share popcorn nonchalantly in neighborly rituals.
On one level, Palo’s debut is an engaging discourse on the problematics of technique in the age of digital art: Why draw when you can digitize? Why paint when you can photoshop? Thus, all his pieces appear in poster-perfect-polish as though rendered on the screen and not by hand, in oil, as they actually were.
On another level, Palo’s imagery introspects upon the fallacy of cuteness, that ineffable duality between the infantile and the profound where the eye is seduced by the cuddly and fragile, triggering basic human instincts to nurture the weak and fragile.
It is, in the artist’s conception, nothing more than a seduction by pedomorphism, an aesthetic whose marketing potential has been exploited to the max by global brands such as Disney and Sanrio. As such, in this re-appropriation of the Japanese proclivity for kawaii, Palo invariably examines the emerging globalization of otaku, the fetishism of docility and non-assertion and the culture of consumption by affection.
Awards & Citations
2006
• Semi-finalist, “Colors of Life”
Cocolife students visual arts competition
2004
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Finalist, 37th Shell National Students Art Competition 2004 - Juror’s Choice Awardee, Art Stokes painting competition
2002 – 2003
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College Scholar, Ist semester
Exhibits
2008
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“State of Art”, SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City 2007 - “Comfort Zone”, Prose Art Gallery, Makati City
2007
• “SFA 193 Online”, online exhibition
2005
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“Omega 3”, Tam-awan village gallery,
Baguio City
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“Kabanata”, Philippine Children’s Medical Center 2004 - 37th Shell National Students Art Competition
2004
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Art Strokes painting competition
• “Omega 2”, Tam-awan village gallery,
Baguio City
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