LOGICAL evolution is clamor and battle cry of the academe. Quests for reason, for its apparent presence or absence, had always been the foundation supporting the seemingly pretentious intellectual discussions in the field of the arts. However, it had always been so clear from the very start that Art should be free of reason, free from logic, free from intellectual explanation. As Art is an expression of its creator, the artist, it must touch senses and sensibilities without unnecessarily burdening itself with its causes, its whys, its wherefores, and its processes. It is the effect of Art that is sublime and important. It is the residue and tangible output of Art that is left behind. It is the result of the art making process that remains to speak for the artist.

WHEN mouths open, Art suffers. Successful art stands on its own. Unsuccessful artists have to voice out their reasons. They have to field their statements, only to provide noise to their ignored works. When words replace visual impact, only one thing is proven: that the artwork cannot speak for itself. The same can also be said of its delivery as it reaches its public and more importantly how it touches and communicates with its audience. It is indeed plain and simple that the quieter the artist, the better the work of art. Intuition rules over reason. Subliminal creation defies logic

PRIVATE EDUCATION

Camille De La Rosa is daughter of the late great painter Ibarra Y. De La Rosa and humanities and art history professor Ethel Dimacuha, also a visual artist. Perhaps aware of the then pathetic plight of artists, Ibarra purposely did not encourage Camille to pursue her own artistic vision. He did not teach her how to paint, nor expose her to the art world he circulated in. Upon his demise in 1998, Camille nevertheless followed her heart and decided to become a painter. Ethel provided Camille with much needed support and encouragement. As constant observer, Ethel taught Camille the basics of painting, as the young artist started to produce art like her father, possibly in the style reminiscent of the French Impressionists. The noted artist Ben Francisco would be credited for Camille’s ultimate development as a painter, as a visual artist. He introduced her to the vast world of painting and gave her a dose of art theory, accompanied by various techniques in drawing and painting. Camille’s intense ambition to create a style of her own inspired her then to paint incessantly.

WITH a non-formal yet consistent artistic education outside of the College of Fine Arts, Camille developed her own style without the logical guidance of academic instructors, imposed and forced upon their students. Neither was she programmed systematically in the creation of art from basic lines, the production of forms and the use of color, to composition, to the development of artistic concepts, artist style and artistic expression. Education states that one must learn the rules in order to break them. Greater artists need not even know the rules, so there is nothing to break.

PROLIFIC is distinctively Camille’s trademark. She has had 15 solo exhibitions from the time she was only 16 years of age till she became 26 last year. This incessant production is further compounded by participation in over 50 group exhibitions here and in Asia and Europe. In the absence of formal education in the Fine Arts, that amount of art making in 10 years can surely replace 5 or 6 years of academic study. In her early career, Camille produced spontaneously and exhibited her landscapes, flowers, gardens, churches, portraits, nudes, people in various endeavors, and her abstracts. Her collectors continued patronizing whatever she produced. Yet suddenly in her 8^th year as artist, she became restless and an urge to get out of the doldrums besieged her. She felt the gnawing call to unravel her real psyche.

AN AUSPICIOUS SIGN appeared in 2005 when Camille drew “Portrait of Anatomy”. Done in charcoal on paper, the central image is a human skull composed of naked muscles and bones from various segments of the human body, with a reclining female figure serving as lips. Symmetrically composed, a traditional landscape frames the central figure. Here is a work emanating from Camille’s inner self, conveying a hidden passion for deeper unfathomable mysteries. The drawing caught the taste of the respectable art jury and won for Camille an honorable mention in the drawing category of the 58^th Annual Competition of the Art Association of the Philippines.

IT TOOK another three years, in December 2008, when Camille got the courage to develop her newly unraveled innards. She appeared as guest artist in Welbart’s second solo exhibition SONA where she presented “Hordes of Charlatan” in oil on canvas. The piece was graciously accepted and purchased by a private collector. This marked the start for Camille to leave her artistic traditions behind, ushering her into the world of contemporary art. The participation of Camille’s so-called “surreal” paintings entitled “Backward Development” and “Narcissism Unbound” in Walong Filipina (Eight Filipinas) in March-April 2009 received commentaries at the Liongoren Gallery. In May 2009, Camille’s “Virgin of the Rose” won second place at the Pagalingang Pinay Art Competition sponsored by the galleries of Reposo in Makati. In July at the ManilArt09, Kulay Diwa Gallery presented Camille’s works solely in its booth. The oil version of “Portrait of Anatomy”, the mystical “The Chalice”, and the 6×6-feet “Those who have ears, hear… Those who have eyes, see…” covered the whole booth’s walls. On the same month, Camille then entered her “Apocalypse” at the Annual GSIS Painting Competition. In September, her work “Awakening” was featured in a New York publication, A Book about Death, an international exposure for the artist through the Emily Harvey Foundation, orchestrated by Tala Gallery’s president James Berdach. She then participated in a group show Subtle Indiscretion in August-September with a piece called “Bestiality” and in Citem Fame’s Art Manila in October with two additional pieces “Inevitable End” and “Resurrecti Scientia”, both exhibitions under the auspices of Artis Corpus Gallery.

CONVINCED of her potential as a trailbla ze r in Philippine visual art, Artis Corpus Gallery offered to re-launch Camille De La R osa beyond her image as traditionalist. In her 16^th solo exhibition, Camille has come of age. Camille has shed off her superficialities, literally, figuratively, and most importantly aesthetically. Here is a visual artist surfacing entirely from her own self-made shell, with a serious artistic statement to contend with.

CAMILLE’S new works are expressions of an inner conflict, although none may be associated with pain and gore. These can possibly be expressions of an internal rebellion to break away from tradition, although one can only surmise. Her works speak of a destruction of the words nice and pretty, without having to go to such terms as dark and ugly. Torment or angst do not have a place in the vocabulary of her works. One can actually imagine slightly playful thoughts, something notoriously naughty, happening in the mind of the artist as she composes her pieces, puts in the flavors of her colors, and slaps her canvasses with her simple signature, signaling not the end of the process, but the start of a new one.

AESTHESIA is the “ability t ofeel or perceive sensations”, or “mental responsiveness and awareness”. It is a word probably invented as back-formation of “anesthesia”, yet it describes exactly what Camille’s new paintings are all about. They are the chronicles of her senses and her sensibilities. They are journals of her inner experiences, her own private adventures. Camille’s new paintings appeal not only to the five commonly known senses of sight, sound, smell, hearing, and taste, but also to the thousand existing others claimed by Eastern practitioners: those attributed to the chakras of spirituality, wisdom, communication, physicality, potential, sexuality, and materiality.

AENIGMA

FROM 11 exhibition pieces birthed by the 2005 “Portrait of Anatomy” drawing, a new series emerges. This time, a more cohesive theme baptizes her body of works: “aenigma” or “one that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable; a perplexing speech or text; a riddle”. It comes from the Latin aenigma and the Greek ainigma, both referring to riddles and fables. Google reveals further that enigma simple means “anything that arouses curiosity or perplexes because it is unexplained, inexplicable, or secret”.  If occult simply means hidden, then enigma is occult. If mystery were simply unknown, then Camille has trodden on mysterious grounds. Camille has embarked on an adventure beyond reason. Camille has revealed the activation of her subconscious Mind and given us the result of her own illogical evolution. Camille has mutated as an artist in order that her inner Self can be sensed by us. As her artistic evolution proceeded in leaps and bounds, so have these works materialized.

“AWAKENING” is appropriately the first work presented in this exhibition. Very buddhist in theme and context, it comments on man’s insatiable desires and their accompanying greed. The artist focuses on the man in the heart of the being, balancing the right eye widely awake and aware of the realities of life and the left eye blinded by greed and self-centeredness. Mammoth desires require huge appetites. The dinosaur in thechakra of materiality at the base of the spine takes on this role.

IN GRATITUDE for Camille’s own Ethel, “Eternal Mother” is presented in the same formalmanner as the traditionally symmetric portrait. Symbols abound in this piece. The roles of the woman as the birth chamber, as the carrier of both adored beauty and sacrifice, and as the nurturer are all present in this work of art. The snake framing the skull of time reminds us of continuity, the never ending cycle of change and transformation, the impermanenceof things. The central female figurecrowned by the moonin all its glory is image of the timeless woman, the only constant reminder of strength, compassion, and wisdom. A fully grown fetus resides in the chamber of the heart, underneath which is a skull completing the cycle of regeneration, in the core of the Eastern lotus, an omnipresent image in buddhist iconography.

IN CAMILLE’S “Ouroboros” (translated “disambiguation”), the serpent biting its own tail is ancient symbol of cyclicality and self-regeneration. Subliminally, it serves as aura of the naked female figure birthing the child wrapped in its primordial cocoon, possibly implying that regeneration occurs only when associated with the female energy. Coffins in the caverns of the lungs remind us of the eventuality of death, yet only to serve as the grounding earth for the springing of new life.

“ R E SURRE CTION” is a lo gical offspring of “Ouroboros” a s it talk s of phoenician rebirth, the ability to rise on one’s own. The lance th at pierced Christ in his cross is presented as central figure of this work, yet hidden to the common eye by the human ribcage. Its deceitful head is that of a crocodile. The meanings may be drawn subliminally with the interjection of Egyptian insects of divinity: the beetle, the spider, and the lizard. A special note on the spider’s role in the life of the Christ: a fable tells of a spider s pinning its heavy web to cover the mouth of the cave to hide the infant from the swords of Herod. Truth needs to be hidden from the eyes of the lus tful.

CELTIC lore brings us to the next painting “Sacred Bull”. Camille clearly made this tribute to the male energy, possibly one for her contaminating father, as she speaks of physical strength, virility, and the ability to procreate for the perpetuation of the clan. Bull is the sun, the protecto r and guardian of the sacred. Yet underneath the figure of the bull are the hands that toil, the hands that work the earth. Reality creeps in beneath the glory of the handsome bull. It is also the symbol of hard work and materialism. This painting somehow serves as the perfect central figure between “Resurrection” and “Galahad”, two pieces which quote from the symbols of the Christ, his glory and his reality, leaving the viewer to guess.

“GALAHAD” appears as the hooded creature as he disintegrates in ecstasy upon seeing the holy grail, traditionally searched for endlessly by Arthur’s knights. Greedy skeletal fingers and impure disintegrating heart surround the unholy quest, which has never ended to the present. As the fabled cup that was used by the Christ in his last supper, this vessel is famed to possess divine powers of wisdom and the potentials surrounding it.

THREE paintings aptly titled “Cycle of Life” are presented in the n ext sequence, as if to remind us of the very essence and theme of this exhibition. Science has proven to us the conservation of matter and energy. Life itself must devour life to live and live again. Elements such as the coiled creatures eating flesh, man’s predecessor eating the man eating the reptile, and jaws of the sharks consuming the man consuming his brain, all repeat the same story. One cannot really destroy that which has been created. Only transformation, and therefore conservation, remains the only action.

AZTEC mythology brings forth “Coatlicue” (translated “our grandmother”). This goddess wearing a skirt of serpents is the earth goddess who was mo ther of the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the other gods and goddesses, clearly a reflection of ancient belief that the Earth is the center of the Universe as well as its source. Coatlicue’s top joins two serpent heads together. Her skirt weaves upon it a multitude of snakes. Snakes had been symbols of death and fertility. Although a nourishing mother, she is also a devouring monster which feeds upon everything that dies. This is the very role of the earth, as it really is. It is the source of life and everything must go back into it to be rebirthed in one other form.

THE LAST painti ng in Camille’s current e xhibition is her own apocalyptic view of humanity: “Amph ibius Manster”. S he remarks: “Rising out of the ocean i s a man-like sea monster representing the evil forces of the universe. With its mouth wide-open , it shouts for h orror. It shows off its oversized teeth to suggest pain for the afflicted. Its chest is a blood-sucking parasite that spares no one. Its head turned away from the vie wer to connote dishonesty and deceit. It has many arms to suggest that it is a master weaver of delusions. It steps on dead bodies amp lifying its triumphant goal:                 d estruction.”

Exhibition Notes by Enrico J. L. Manlapaz, curator

Sixteenth solo exhibition launching the new body of works of Camille Dela Rosa

Artis Corpus Gallery 303 Haig Street Bagong Silang Mandaluyong City

Opens 6:00pm Saturday 5 December 2009

Runs till Monday 28 December 2009

The Virgin of the Rose by Camille Dela Rosa

By Noel Sales Barcelona

The message of the painting is being a woman in a macho society is not that easy. You are being mechanized; your movement, thoughts and personality are being suppressed by the norms of the society.

You needed to dress like this, to talk like this, and think like this. Thus the “wild” side of a woman likes what Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Jungian analyst wants to say, had been, for a long time, buried; the sacred ground of where the spirit of true femininity can freely offer itself to the True Self had been bulldozed and bastardized; and the nurturing nature of woman had been replaced by synthetic, whore-like emotions.

The gall bladder, at the left side of the painting, depicts this bitter reality. The central image which is like being sacrificed to the mechanical, brain-faced and honeycomb haired God, reinforces the observation of this reality, women are being controlled, not to make them better persons and have been treated as objects and subjects of desire.

The women are also burdened by different crises of life: economic, political, and even moral. They are burdened by work, as the resources are scarce.

They are burdened by pregnancy, birth and child-rearing. It is the woman being blamed for a delinquent child.

They are burdened by personal crisis: emotional and psychological, sometimes. As coping mechanism, some of the women tend to “free” themselves by being sexually liberated, therefore falling into the pit of falsehood that the only freedom of the woman can get is just the freedom to express her self through copulation or sexual intercourse.

However, these crises can also be treated as opportunities for a woman to grow emotionally, psychically, physically and spiritually—the symbol of the rose and the child, being conceived inside a heart, underneath the central image of the painting.

But how can they translate it as an opportunity is for them to meditate and listen to the Voice inside of them.

Nevertheless, one must toil and work hard to be able to recognize this Voice as this is being engulfed by the noise of this world of ours.

Moreover, there is a need also for the women to recognize their role to the society, not only as keepers of the home and the helpers of the man, but also the keepers of the balance of this “universe.”

As the woman has the power to give life, it is also her role to keep this world alive by participating actively in the development of the society, for the good of all mankind.

The Virgin of the Rose

by Adi Baen Santos

The objective of the painting has put up a challenge to your skill in doing oil renditions of the human body parts. The result is remarkable but it might also have immersedyou in an unstoppable passion to create so many symbols. However, I respect the innate ability of a mature artist to rationalize every element he/she introduces on the canvas. In that case, there are never too many elements for there is always a way to unite them and lead them to their logical conclusion. A logically finished painting does not necessarily put across a message conforming to the real intention of the artist but it gives the viewer a point where to gather the pieces and define their interrelationships to come up with a coherent meaning in the painting.

I was temporarily lost in so many details in the painting but I managed to perceive an idea just by looking at the periphery of the largest image that appears to be that of a male figure. I could not be mistaken that there are two legs signifying a woman bending forward to the man. If a woman bends forward naked, it is “bottoms up” for the center of her femininity and her rose comes in full bloom. Your penchant for botanical and anatomical presentations resulted in an image of the flower of the woman, magnified and cross sectioned, to show all powers connected to womanhood— foremost is the power to bear offspring. But what is most conspicuous is another image of a woman– a full, naked, young feminine body, lying in the center. It has confused everything for a while, knowing in principle that no two symbols in any work of art must oppose each other. My only way to resolve this is to interpret it as the very nerve center of feminine sensation—the
clitoris, most probably untouched, as suggested by the title of the painting. It can be a decisive point of fall or of chastity, depending on issues regarding legitimate sex and moral standard. Another possibility, which I’m less comfortable with, is that, it is the image of a woman who has sprung up from hibernation from the womb below, ready to test the perils of puberty and encounters with the opposite sex.

The Chalice by Camille Dela Rosa

by Noel Sales Barcelona

The three skulls being supported by a foot, standing on the land covered with bones, which comprise the Chalice, is the symbol of three (3) elements of man: mind, body and spirit; the foot, depicts the eternal quest of man for perfection.

That is why, the three is enclosed by a halo: the symbol of purity or holiness—which is the highest phase of human development.

However, to be able to achieve perfection, one must master not the mundane but the ethereal, the Spiritual, which is being symbolized by the perfectly red, shining ruby, in the forehead of the middle skull.

On the other hand, the Chalice also means Life Eternal. In the mystical tradition, the bones and skulls, are the symbols of the eternal (What you sow does not come to life unless it dies, 1 Corinthians 15: 36).

To make it more complete, the lizard (Jesus Christ lizard) looking at the chalice is the symbol of regeneration as well as the power of the man to overcome death by making himself knowledgeable to the ways of the Eternal.

THE CHALICE – A Biblical Interpretation

by Fiel Meria and David Nakpil

The chalice is a well-known symbol in Christian tradition. During the Last Supper, Jesus Christ had professed as he lifted a chalice of wine, to do this ritual in remembrance of him. The chalice then, is a container that serves as a symbol of our memory of him. He wanted us to know – to have knowledge of him, his deeds and his commitment to the salvation of mankind. In a sense, it is knowledge that can save us.

In the creation account of Genesis, there are two trees mentioned. One is the tree of life, and the other is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. An interpretation made by theologian Henri Nouwen is that the first sin of man had been a sin of the appetite – wherein his eating of the fruit showed his desire to be all-knowing or “omnipotent.” He maintains that wisdom to know good and evil isn’t a sin in itself – what is sinful is to desire it in order to wield power. This power we recognize is something that we should leave to God alone.

The painting then, is an interaction of symbols that represent wisdom from the symbolism of the chalice in Christian tradition and the creation account. The shape of the skulls, with the halo around it secured by a foot mimics that of a tree – the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The halo represents life which is good, and the skulls and bones represent death which is sinful. The halo being above all other symbols represent the triumph of life over death.

Notice that the animal in the painting is a lizard, who symbolizes man as he walks on two legs. More often than not, man succumbs to his appetite. This means that besides our rational nature, we also have an animalistic nature that often succumbs to our inner desires and motives. As he stares at the bright red jewel – the forbidden fruit, he is tempted by the desire to be omnipotent by eating it.

Not surprisingly, when one is asked what the center of the painting is we answer that is the probable would be the red jewel. It is in our nature to be attracted to earthly desires – what is expensive, shiny or beautiful. We do not notice the two eyes above it – represented by God who is always watching us. When Adam and Eve were hiding in the garden, God asked them where they were – and yet he knew where they were. Perhaps the wisdom of the chalice is to humble ourselves and let us be found by God, because even in our refusal to be found, he knows where we are.

Camille Dela Rosa’s complete departure from landscapes and gardens, those who are considered the natural, the beautiful is quite impressive.

Ms. Camille Jean Verdelaire D. Dela Rosa is now trying to swim into the ocean of the surreal, the morbid, the mechanical, the unknown and her cruising can be said, quite smoothly; as if the 26-year old artist had already mastered how to pilot her boat without the compass, only looking at the constellations and the moon and the planets, as her guide.

She said, she just put parts of the human body, the beasts on the ground and underwater, birds flying on the air, and other elements of the “not-so-beautiful” on the immaculate white canvass, and the philosophical pieces of artworks are born.

Portrait of Anatomy- Charcoal on Paper

It is undeniable, the surrealist arts and literature was born during the time of chaos, at the time of the destructive world wars.

It flourished in Europe between World Wars I and II, and principally grew out of the earlie Dada movement, which before the World War I produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason; but Surrealism emphasis was not on negation but on positive expression.

The movement represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the “rationalism” that had guided European culture and politics in the past and had culminated in the horrors of World War I.

According to the major spokesman of the movement, the poet and critic André Breton, who published “The Surrealist Manifesto” in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surreality.”

Drawing heavily on theories adapted from Sigmund Freud, Breton saw the unconscious as the wellspring of the imagination. He defined genius in terms of accessibility to this normally untapped realm, which, he believed, could be attained by poets and painters alike. This movement continues to flourish at all ends of the earth. Continued thought processes and investigations into the mind produce today some of the best art ever seen.

In the Philippines, there are just few good surrealist painters. These include Bienvenido Bones Banez, Jr., and now perhaps, De la Rosa who is now making noise in the surrealist world.

Portrait of Anatomy

Unknown to many, the young De la Rosa who is known to enchant her viewers and collectors with her gardens, landscapes, Churches, beaches and people, are into the surreal since the early 2000. Her Portrait of an Anatomy, had won a distinction on the prestigious 58th Annual Artists’ Association of the Philippines (AAP) Competition in 2005.

Last year, her Hordes of Charlatan came into view, a philosophical and political statement of the young artist against the quackery and greed of those who are in power. It is also served as mirror of her subconsciousness and super-consciousness, for the painting meditates not only on death but also on eternity; bones and skulls in the Gnostic beliefs symbolize the resurrection of the pure soul.

Amazingly, her new set of works, which she had struggled to finish amidst busy schedule and taking care of a sick hound (De la Rosa is a dog-lover), offer refreshing thoughts to ponder about life, knowledge, human and social developments, and the reaching of the Higher Self.

Her Backward Development, with the spectacle-wearing monkey drawn upside-down, amid the criss-cross of bones, woman’s and man’s hands, holding a skull with a lighted candle on it, and fingers with eyes, is indeed an interesting piece.

There were rumors that the society, because of the self-destruct qualities of men, are now going again to its primitive state. Darwin’s theory of evolution had become futile in this piece of art, which says, that due to the men’s materialism, his clinging to the temporary (wealth, body desires, etc.) had made him ignorant to the ultimate goal of life, which is the attainment of Eternity or the immortality of one’s soul.

Backward Development - Oil on Canvas

However, one can argue that the ultimate goal of life is to attain happiness that can be extracted through money, sex and food; that obtaining all of these can bring one to the Harlem or the Oasis of Existence. But, is there anyone has meditated on the fact that the more you wanted, the more you are starved; and the more that you become intelligent or wise, the more you become foolish? As of King Solomon, one of the wisest kings of the Old Israel said, “Everything is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1: 1, 3, 8, 16-18; King James Version, 1611).

On the other hand, her Chalice shows the viewer of the men’s ultimate destiny: to become eternal by having the complete union with the Supreme.

The three skulls enveloped in a golden halo, with the exposed brains in its complete and partial forms, and the palate showing a complete set of teeth, simply represent the fullness of the unknown wisdom (as the viewers can see, the only a portion of the two brains are exposed, except the middle brain), in which the Man struggles to pursue.

The Jesus Christ lizard on the lower-right hand corner of the colorful canvas represents the regenerative process of the Soul. As one is struggling to learn the process of Immortality by mastering the wisdom taught by the Spirit itself, the one can be assured that anyone who diligently seek Her, can find her and that the Almighty is indeed generous to give Her and her fruits to those who love Him. (Sirach 1: 10, a book of the Apocrypha).

The red, bright shining ruby in the middle of the forehead of the central skull is the verification of the Spiritual, although according to the creator of the work she has not known such interpretation of her work, wisdom of the painting. (Proverbs 3: 13-15).

What is more interesting in this piece, is only a foot that carries all the weight of the three skulls (that can be symbolically interpreted as the wisdom, yesterday, today and the morrow) and that broke bones are scattered all over the foot of the canvas. Is this an agreement with the words of the Proverbs 3: 21-23 (KJV): “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion: So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck. Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble.”?

The third work, The Awakening seems to be the combination of the ephemeral and the ethereal, the carnal and the spiritual, the wisdom and the folly.

With man as the center of the heart of man, it is visibly a statement of the artist’s observation of the society: Everyone seems not to care with one another, and while one eye is looking on the realities, one is blinded with greed and selfishness which hinders him or her to have the complete view of the what is happening to the society.

Nevertheless, the Burning Bush on the upper part of the dissected body, with roots are found in the seeing eye, salvages the entire negativity of the picture. In the book of Exodus, Yahweh, the Almighty God spoke to Moises through a burning bush, which symbolizes the eternal light and the consuming power of the Righteousness and Love of God.

From there, Yahweh had instructed Moises how to salvage the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, His chosen people, from the yoke of slavery.

With the knowledge and the complete love for the Divine as the center of the journey of men to his salvation—represented by the brain wherein the extended roots of the Burning Bush is connected—one can be assured his or her filthiness can be purged and the real Self, can be released, the strong and the free one (symbolized by the wolf).

The alligator’s skull which serves as the opening of the womb of the dissected body, can be a center of a positive reflection, too. Notwithstanding its “common” symbol of greedy politicians or world leaders, in the Egyptian mythology, the crocodile or the alligator represents strength, wealth and fertility. Remembering Taweret, the Egyptian hippo-crocodile-lioness goddess of the Nile which protects the women in pregnancy and birthing, and although considered as the wife of the devil god Apep, is the protector of everyone against evil spirits.

Nonetheless, the alligator as a replacement of the female’s vagina, can also be interpreted as the hunger for sex or the fullness of one’s sexuality and the never ending appetite for material enjoyment.

In the whole, her The Awakening can really awaken one who is searching his or her self, and can attain the promises of Enlightenment. (30)

By Noel Sales Barcelona

If the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is universally acceptable, it can thus be said that there’s real beauty in the “morbid” canvases of the young painter in bloom, Ms. Camille Jean Verdelaire D. de la Rosa.

She now departs from her usual themes of gardens, landscapes and “real” people. The 26-year-old impressionist artist, Ms. Camille de la Rosa, escapes from the “happy” faces and places of her artistic world.

With torn flesh, skulls, and distorted faces, combined with beasts’ body parts, De La Rosa’s canvases now bleed with different moods and expression of the human face – thus remaking the concept of beauty, of dreaming, of chaotic and peaceful realities.

Unknown to many, De La Rosa’s inclination toward the surreal isn’t new. She began to paint the bizarre in the early 2000s while she was introducing herself to the world of expressionism. She even won an award for her work then, she told this writer when he paid a visit to her home at the back of one of the oldest universities in Mandaluyong.

A compound statement of artistic genius

Her Hordes of Charlatan is a compound statement of how brilliant and what a genius the painter is. It is both a philosophical and a political statement. It is about how she views the world, in its entirety and particularities, and how she reexamines the relationships of humans to each other and to the world.

The piece was exhibited at the SM Megamall, at the S.O.N.A. Group exhibition spearheaded by another great artist, Joel “Welbart” Bartolome, which ran from Dec. 28, 2008 to Jan. 5, 2009.

“It’s a statement about greed and quackery,” De la Rosa thus describes her work of interlocking bones, overlapping skulls, multi-legs, and phantom-like images. Greed is now the wheel driving this society of ours and the author will not disagree with how it was depicted in De la Rosa’s pieces.

In today’s society, politicians are not leaders but undertakers; judges are guardians of sepulchers; the businessmen are worms eating the flesh.

Wittingly or unwittingly, the painter had put into her painting all the elements of what “human society” is today and how the human mind is being molded by the decaying culture of greed, selfishness, and of the praise of money.

However, Hordes of Charlatan, which can be considered as one of De la Rosa’s magnum opuses, can be interpreted in many other ways.

The mystical and the mythical

The skull with the cross-bones is not actually a symbol of death but rather of life. As the Apostle Paul said, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53).

It is by the death of Christ (crossbones) in the Mountain of Skulls (Golgotha) that everyone who believes is being restored into his or her original state, as the Apostle Paul told the Romans: “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living” (14:9).

To make it simpler, the bones and the skull symbolize the death, burial and resurrection of the lamb, which is called “Christ”.

If one will reexamine De la Rosa’s work, one can see in it the symbols of the said ancient mystery of Christ.

That De la Rosa would tackle this theme is not a surprise: her father, also a renowned painter, is a student of the Occult – a subject which, its students say, can help us to understand more of ourselves and can be a reminder that everything and everybody will fade or pass away

But de la Rosa’s crossbones and the skull can also mean death to the said enemies of faith. It serves as warning to those who wants to go astray to repent and to go back to the basic tenets of the faith taught by the Teacher, Christ.

Death

The picture that the young De la Rosa painted also fits the meditation of Carl Jung, a famous psychoanalyst, on death:

I have often been asked what I believe about death, that unproblematical ending of individual existence.

Death is known to us simply as the end. It is the period, often placed before the close of the sentence and followed only by memories of aftereffects in others.

For the person concerned, however, the sand has run out of the glass; the rolling stone has come to rest. When death confronts us, life always seems like a downward flow or like a clock that has been wound up and whose eventual “running down” is taken for granted.

We are never more convinced of this “running down” than when a human life comes to its end before our eyes, and the question of the meaning and worth of life never becomes more urgent or more agonizing than when we see the final breath leave a body which a moment before was living. How different does the meaning of life seem to us when we see a young person striving for distant goals and shaping the future, and compare this with an incurable invalid, or with an old man who is sinking reluctantly and without strength to resist into the grave!

Youth — we should like to think — has purpose, future, meaning, and value, whereas the coming to an end is only a meaningless cessation.

If a young man is afraid of the world, of life and the future, then everyone finds it regrettable, senseless, neurotic; he is considered a cowardly shirker. But when an aging person secretly shudders and is even mortally afraid at the thought that his reasonable expectation of life now amounts to only so many years, then we are painfully reminded of certain feelings within our own breast; we look away and turn the conversation to some other topic.

The optimism with which we judge the young man fails us here.

Naturally we have on hand for every eventuality one or two suitable banalities about life which we occasionally hand out to the other fellow, such as “everyone must die sometime,” “one doesn’t live forever,” etc. But when one is alone and it is night and so dark and still that one hears nothing and sees nothing but the thoughts which add and subtract the years, and the long row of disagreeable facts which remorselessly indicate how far the hand of the clock has moved forward, and the slow, irresistible approach of the wall of darkness which will eventually engulf everything you love, possess, wish, strive, and hope for — then all our profundities about life slink off to some undiscoverable hiding place, and fear envelops the sleepless one like a smothering blanket.

With this, De la Rosa’s Hordes of Charlatan can be a monument, a constant reminder that we must always reexamine our conscience, the truth or what we believe to be the truth, and the life we are living. For it is hard to when you are in your deathbed and no one can hear your agony, your pain, except your self – which is about to vanish from the face of the earth