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Lot Essay
In Louie Cordero's art, ?truth comes in the form of a subversive ensemble. Cordero grew up in the urban sprawl of Manila, spending his early years observing elaborate Catholic imagery, the mind-boggling humor of Filipino B-movies and even the oddities of old Japanese reruns and American horror magazines. His distinctive lexicon has earned descriptions like 'inimitable', 'ground-breaking', and even 'influential' from art critics and other artists who have spent time understanding his work. This recognition has led Cordero to receive important grants, awards and solo exhibitions internationally.
His sculpture, The Lead Brothers(Lot 162), is yet his most personal account of these conflicting visual encounters from when he was a child. The twins are receptacles of innocence saintly and submissive, well-polished and indifferently poised to hide a layer which is inherently disturbing: portions of their faces have been removed to reveal the underlying flesh and blood, inviting us to ask whether these mutilations diminish a boy's ascent to the ideal. The twins are modelled after the image of Dominic Savio, a patron saint for schoolboys, while their features are realized after Cordero's own, a depiction from a photograph taken while he was young, during a time when a part of his face was also scarred from a dog bite.
Louie Cordero's artworks, whether as paintings or sculptures, are never short of symbolism and parodies, and usually rife with narrative qualities. In The Lead Brothers, the twins are perched on top of a massive brain, resplendent with details of lobes and sinew where colors appear to throb. Behind is a cross accentuated with Cordero's signature coat of sweltering blobs of brown, while rays made of copper shine from the vortex to illuminate the aesthetic found in the archaic designs of religious icons. His manner of juxtaposing the different iconographies from various subcultures from local artisan trades, to religious symbols and myth, and to the triteness of schoolbook imagery seem to present a kind of wager, challenging us in how far can we accept, not only fantastic and bizarre combinations, but rather the realness of such simultaneous presence in one's daily life. For as much as these ventures may result in what most of us may call difficult imagery, or sometimes as shocking spectacle, in Louie Cordero's world these are the succinct narratives of memory, fantasy, and one's faithfulness to what is real within.
His sculpture, The Lead Brothers(Lot 162), is yet his most personal account of these conflicting visual encounters from when he was a child. The twins are receptacles of innocence saintly and submissive, well-polished and indifferently poised to hide a layer which is inherently disturbing: portions of their faces have been removed to reveal the underlying flesh and blood, inviting us to ask whether these mutilations diminish a boy's ascent to the ideal. The twins are modelled after the image of Dominic Savio, a patron saint for schoolboys, while their features are realized after Cordero's own, a depiction from a photograph taken while he was young, during a time when a part of his face was also scarred from a dog bite.
Louie Cordero's artworks, whether as paintings or sculptures, are never short of symbolism and parodies, and usually rife with narrative qualities. In The Lead Brothers, the twins are perched on top of a massive brain, resplendent with details of lobes and sinew where colors appear to throb. Behind is a cross accentuated with Cordero's signature coat of sweltering blobs of brown, while rays made of copper shine from the vortex to illuminate the aesthetic found in the archaic designs of religious icons. His manner of juxtaposing the different iconographies from various subcultures from local artisan trades, to religious symbols and myth, and to the triteness of schoolbook imagery seem to present a kind of wager, challenging us in how far can we accept, not only fantastic and bizarre combinations, but rather the realness of such simultaneous presence in one's daily life. For as much as these ventures may result in what most of us may call difficult imagery, or sometimes as shocking spectacle, in Louie Cordero's world these are the succinct narratives of memory, fantasy, and one's faithfulness to what is real within.