It is every new artist’s dream to be given that one big break—and that happened for Rodel when he won the grand prize in the Asia Pacific Nokia Art Awards held in Seoul, Korea in the year 2000.
Tales of road grief have kept me city bound. I am one with many in trying to create a bubble—for my work, school, and family life—within a radius that doesn’t require traversing major highways. So, when an invitation to visit an artist workshop in Bulacan came about, I dilly-dallied before committing to go one Sunday morning. And to my surprise, that morning conversation with artist couple Rodel Tapaya and Marina Cruz made me wish I had my own far flung place to go home to, because life outside the city still offers an idyllic escape, surrounded by gardens and chirping birds. Rodel and Marina have created their own bubble, with their studio being a five-minute walk from their home. And anyone will be hard-pressed in getting them out of this bubble.
Needless to say, this is an ideal backdrop for artists who need the quiet and the space to breathe and create. Rodel recently concluded a one-man show at Artinformal (Ai), On the Benefits of a Crowded Space, his first solo show in a gallery in Manila in close to a decade. It was a show charged with the new while revisiting his roots. Ai’s space provided the perfect reveal, with the ground floor lobby and room dedicated to his oeuvre on burlap, which was his main canvass of choice earlier in his career. As one entered the wide-open space up on the second floor, that feeling of surprise met any visitor. And there, the folk tales were told in the way only Rodel could, on monumental canvasses which allow him to add minute details of his very vivid imagination onto the works.