Phillipines-born, New York City-based artist Dominic Mangila is currently having a single-painting show entitled New Republic at Marvelli Gallery through April 4. Also the name of the massive, near-7 by 9 foot painting, New Republic represents a 2 ½ year effort to portray Mangila’s family’s home province of Pampanga which was left in a state of destruction following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991.
Mangila says the wall depicted in the painting represents one of a few walls left standing in Pampanga after the eruption. Mangila’s effort represents a metaphor of The Phillipines, “its life and death, beauty and decay, desperation and hope.” Through the 2 ½ years of paint strokes, markings, and layers, Mangila created a painting which “becomes the image it depicts.” When he saw the painting in Mangila’s studio, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija remarked, “This is the Phillipines.”
