Joy Calanasan’s paintings are considered a personal approach of various inspirations from different masters achieved through her own visual code.
In her work process, she melds the traditions of both modern and contemporary art: reclaiming the illuminated conjunction for its association with the notions of transience and impermanence, as she attempts a new way of looking at the connective powers of the historical and how they can relate to contemporary communication in the age of social networking.
Calanasan references her themes by cultivating ideas from the masters such as National Artists H.R. Ocampo, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, Abdulmari Imao, and Ben Cabrera, Juvenal Sanso, as well as Mauro Malang and Romulo Olazo.
The undercurrent of the exhibit is an appeal to the common humanity and shared universal human values, regardless of time passed. Through her symbiotic artistic expression of entwined art movements, Calanasan hopes to reach beyond the socio-political divisions and motivate a positive change in the conception of new art as culturally or visually permeable.
The artworks appeal to the universal soul of the human condition, that which is within each of us and that transcends time and geographical space.
Jesusa Marjorie “Joy” Prudencio-Calanasan (b.1978) has been artistic and creative since as a child she expressed her abilities in drawing, crafts, bonsai cultivation, even co-hosting an infotainment TV show as a Mass Communications student at Miriam College.
In recent years, now a wife and mother of two, Calanasan has attempted to paint in order to fill their home with her own artworks. Through social media, family and friends were able to admire and recognize her extraordinary flair. In 2016, she started to accept commissioned pieces, then the artist slowly but surely attracted a steady following.
Calanasan has ventured into art exhibitions both locally and internationally, and currently guests in a monthly podcast of an acrylic-pouring group boasting of 97,000 members worldwide. Most recently, Galerie Joaquin enlisted her as one of its up-and-coming artists.
“Reverence” by Joy Calanasan will be on view simultaneously at Galerie Raphael Shangri-la and Galerie Raphael Serendra from July 13 to 23. Galerie Raphael Shangri-la is located at Level 4, Main Wing Shangri-La Plaza Mall, EDSA cor. Shaw Blvd. Mandaluyong City and Galerie Raphael Serendra is at the Second Level, The Piazza Serendra Mall, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.
