The movement continues to flourish at all ends of the earth, and now it had reached Philippine shores.
The continued thought processes and investigations into the mind has produced today some of the best art ever seen. This is also true in the way De la Rosa now produces her latest works.
De la Rosa’s “prophetic” vision
De la Rosa is inspired by the human anatomy, the complexity of the work of the brain, the intestines and other parts of the body. This inspiration became the flesh of the artist’s current surreal works.
“I am just amazed at how these things work. Just like our society, interconnected, intertwined, inseparable. However, it is saddening that some people are too selfish, that although they have already hurt their fellowmen, they seem not to care,” she said.
The painter further explained, “Since the surreal is the material representation of the subconscious and the unconscious, it is perfect to meditate on some aspect of being human: the capacity to discern what is right from wrong, the beneficial and the detrimental. Not as much trying to be philosophical, but the current works do reflect certain realities of our world: the reign of greed, non-compassion, non-empathy, lack of love, the desire of belongingness to ever indifferent world.”
“Notwithstanding the advances of human knowledge, millions of people are still in deep penury and although we can see it, we don’t react. We are blinded by our desire to gain all the wealth of the world. Due this, our society is kind of suffering from backwardness,” she added.
Her piece, Backward Development, the painting with the spectacle-wearing monkey drawn upside-down, amid the crisscross of bones, woman’s and man’s hands holding a skull with a lighted candle on it, as the central figure, represents this reality.
Re-examining how the world is working right now, the piece is indeed a depiction of suffering from a destructive type of “development”, which eventually will bring the world to its earliest state: nothingness.
It seems, in this work of Ms. De la Rosa, Darwin’s theory of evolution has become senseless. Human intelligence, as Backward Development suggests, due to its being mammon-focused and centered on self-gratification, brings man to a more lowly state.
One can argue with the observation of the author. One might say 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 who has meditated on the fact that the more you want, the more you are starved; and the more that you become intelligent or wise, the more you become foolish? As King Solomon, one of the wisest kings of the Old Israel said, “Everything is vanity.”
One must return to the noble, the true and the good
On the other hand, people still have hope. As her Chalice suggests, if only one can find that ruby, that pure Knowledge, the selfless and God-centered knowledge, he or she can live in happiness and completeness.
