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‘ANYAREH’: Kiko Marquez Portrays the Increasing Complexity of Modern Life
ANYAREH, Kiko Marquez’s newest exhibit at Art Cube Gallery in Makati, uses some interesting surrealist imagery to depict a world upended, while redefining the meaning of normal.
Marquez claims his daughter served as the inspiration for the exhibit, asking an “innocent question” about “some baffling scenes she experienced.” From that child-like curiosity, Marquez crafts works that straddle the line between the natural and modern world.
“[The exhibit] is an evolving story of where we are now and where this expression of the artist’s thought-provoking journey will take us,” the exhibit write-up said. “Marquez’s dexterous technique and layered symbolisms invite viewers to explore the intersections of beauty and fragility, protection and vulnerability.”
Nature Colliding with the City
“Layered symbolisms” is correct. ANYAREH is a series of multimedia works that provokes discussions on our society’s treatment of the environment as a whole.
Many of the paintings employ the motif of plastic pollution to illustrate how it changes our environment for the worse. One work shows a plastic bag floating in the ocean like an iceberg, and another shows a tiny fish stuck inside a plastic cup. It very much comments on the dangers of this pollution on the ocean.
Other works, like the painted animals in cages, provoke commentary on how we treat animals. For this one, Marquez uses actual metal bars to cage his subjects. This artistic choice establishes the idea of how humanity tends to imprison things found in nature.
His use of mixed media doesn’t end there, adding concrete elements on some of his landscapes. One painting juxtaposes a butterfly on a blade of grass with a “no parking” concrete barrier, with exposed rebar mimicking the blade of grass.
How Progress Affects Our Perspective
All of these combine to create this perspective: human progress as the removal of nature. We have all these memories of scenic farms and forests, but for many of us, the reality is concrete and steel buildings instead. Many of us wouldn’t be able to experience untarnished nature—we see animals in zoos, and fences and buildings surround our own parks.
Kiko Marquez’s work puts us in that context. It doesn’t marvel at the wonder of nature, it shows us instead that the continued progress of humankind requires the removal of nature in most of our spaces. The artist puts the same kind of barriers that city folks have in experiencing these places. And then it hits us with the question: “anyareh?” (“what happened?”).
Marquez shows us that a world focused only on human progress is a world lacking in freedom. In these works, even those that used to exist freely are now suffocated by our progress. Is a world filled with plastic pollution, where we see nature only in the context of zoos and small parks between buildings—is this the world we really want? Can a world this polluted be enough for everyone living in it?
ANYAREH doesn’t answer those questions for us. Provocation doesn’t always need a concrete answer. Kiko Marquez, crafting this from the curiosity of his young child, just puts us in a headspace where we can ruminate on the kind of world we desire to live in.
Related reading: ‘Gyre Dominion’: Jose Olarte Digs Up Meta-Commentary for Industrial Progress
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