This is not the first time you went back to your fine art roots after focusing your career in fashion photography. Tell us how you prepared for this particular exhibition.

Mark Nicdao (MN): Before everything, I got invited to three group shows (from 2019 to 2021), in which I got involved with mixed media. After that, I scratched the itch to paint. It became unbearable because it was unsatisfactory to me and what I can do. I did not like what I'm doing, because I wasn't really a painter. My insecurity on it grew as I tried to sketch using pencils, ink pens, then coloured pencils [until] I braved [using] acrylic on canvas. It was really purgatorial, [as if] swimming in a limbo of mediocrity, laziness, and self-doubt—that was the hurdle. [Surprisingly], that became my painful preparation for this show. I learnt not to throw or destroy every work I try starting on just because I felt it was up to no good.

What's the concept all about?

MN: Concept isn't really what I worked on in this exhibition but I think it's a part of a huge puzzle, that is my show at Leon Gallery International. I've done that on top of photoshoots [and] it felt like a pinched nerve. It was really more of free association that gave way to figures and colours that came out on the canvas with acrylic colours and through different brushes and strokes. More really like unconsciously doing actions without explanation but has a lot of lust to find the direction to take this work to a satisfactory ending.

Can you briefly walk us through your creative process and some experiments you've made to come up with your works?

MN: First I sketch on my notebook, then look at silhouettes. I try to put that vision on a bigger scale with a canvas. I paint daytime and nighttime to see how colours would react to available light sources, either natural or artificial. Then I mix colours, layer it from primer to the most minute details, which means having 10 layers of colour and more. It depends on the depth I want to see, not dramatic lighting (or like having realistic shadows and highlights in the most obvious part), but more of the nerves and bodily organs. It made me disoriented, making me drawn to the paintings and things. That's why I realised I think I found the light on the tunnel. In accordance [with] yin and yang concepts, I also look at how to combine space (zen) and horror vacui, both of which I am fascinated about.

Which work in your exhibition do you think best captured your message/artistic philosophy? Tell us more about it.

MN: I don't want to feed the viewers or suggest what to feel by sending out a message or artistic philosophy. I have my own take on it and yours will be even more satisfying because it's yours . . .your feeling on it. I can say that this show really helped me go through the toughest time of my life and the worst probable insecurity that I can think of myself. I can go deeper but I believe in simplicity in the form of complications, irony, and disinhibition in my crazy conscious mind.

What side of Mark Nicdao usually gets unleashed when you tap into fine arts medium? Is that side of you also present when you do photography?

MN: Ideally, both [worlds] should be working hand in hand: fine art and advertising, fashion and photojournalism, portraits and painting . . .there is a thousand sides of myself that I have whenever I'm working or even just living every day. It's a complex world of balancing everything. I'm not into 'dressing the part' or trying to be this or that.

What fuels your creativity and what challenges you most?

MN: Adversity, manic feelings, complexity, life-altering experience, genuine happiness, positive transgressions.

What does art mean to you?

MN: A conscious and subconscious expression of an individual who has a message to send without stating the obvious. It conflicts with yourself or it manages to make you remember some unfamiliar nuances (your own taboos and beliefs, etc). It gives you peace or nightmare, openness or anger, enlightenment or disorientation. Among other things, you are the basis—if it is art or not—whatever its medium of humanity (sculpture, painting, movies, music, or photographs) and no matter how deep or shallow it is. It doesn't mean you know better or you are special. Rather, for you, it is something better than it looks and it may be different for others.

NOW READ

Mark Nicdao Talks About Photography, Industry Challenges, And His Career Highlights

The Next In Line: Generation T 2018

Art Agenda Feb to March 2022: Must-See Art Exhibitions Around Metro Manila