Reynold Dela Cruz

SLICING THROUGH THE FAÇADE 

Reynold Dela Cruz on the real meaning of beauty 

 August 26, 2019 / C-3

Text by Terence Repelente 

 

Artist Reynold Dela Cruz has always been interested in de­molishing façades and reveal­ing the truth within things, objects, and personalities. Most, if not all, of his works revolve around this theme. Such was “The Secret Within,” his exhibition held last year at the J Studio Art Gallery, in which he dwelled on the perception of beauty and the lay­ers associated with it using images of animals, plants, and women. 

In his current exhibition at the Art Cube Gallery, “Diabolic Charm,” Dela Cruz tackles the same theme, but broader, he says, and political. 

“Yung exhibit ay tungkol sa nang­yayari sa paligid (the exhibit is about what’s happening around me),” he says. “sa mga kaibigan, pulitika, relihiyon (to my friends, to politics, religion).” 

These, especially politics, ac­cording to Dela Cruz, are like the wind, parang hangin, you don’t re­ally notice them, but they’re there, they’re happening, and they affect all of us. “Ayaw mo man manood, ayaw mo man makinig, pero mararamda­man mo (even if you don’t want to par­ticipate, you will feel it). You and your family will be affected.” 

But, essentially, according to Dela Cruz, “Diabolic Charm” is a continua­tion of his past solo exhibits. In these oil-on-canvas works, he “presents narratives that center on the super­ficiality of the popular definitions of beauty.” Beauty, he says, is often bent on pleasing aesthetics, a façade that sometimes burrows into violent or corrupt truths. 

“Madalas nalilinlang tayo ng isang bagay na maganda (we are of­ten deceived by things that are ‘beau­tiful’),” he says. Dela Cruz cites many examples, such as his old neighbor who boasts about going to Saudi Ara­bia, wearing gold jewelry pieces to mask the truth about the difficulties of working abroad.

 

“Hindi lahat ng maganda ay toto­toong maganda (not all that glitter is gold),” he says. “Hindi lahat ng pina­pangarap natin ay para sa atin o kailangan natin (not everything we dream of is truly what we need).”

 

In the works featured in his exhibit, he used images of Eurocentric women carrying Gothically-rendered animals as the face of deceptive beauty. Euro­peans, according to him, are superior people, royals. “Kapag pumasok ka, sasabihin mo agad ‘ang ganda nito ah’ kahit hindi mo pa alam ang totoo (when you look around, you’ll immedi­ately say ‘wow, they’re beautiful,’ even without knowing the context),” he says. 

Once you go around and closely in­spect the works, according to Dela Cruz, you’ll see things that are wrong and ab­surd. He cites politicians as an example, comparing them to “beautiful women.” Politicians are like beautiful women wearing fancy clothes. “Pero makikita mo ‘yung totoong pagkatao nila sa mga ginagawa nila (but you’ll see who they really are in what they do).” 

In his personal favorite among the works, Tapat na Taksil, he renders an Elizabethan era woman holding a sin­ister creature that has the head of a dog and the body of a crow. The crea­ture, he says, signifies loyalty (dog) and slyness (crow). This work shows how some people, especially friends, may be loyal when they’re in front of you, he says, but will always be ready to betray and stab you on the back.

 

Through his works, Dela Cruz says, he reminds us to always be critical of things and people. Known for his con­founding act of slashing his canvas, in this case across the faces of the beau­tiful women depicted in the works, he demonstrates the deconstruction of aesthetic norms. For him, the true essence of beauty is depicting reality as truthfully as possible. When asked what he aims to achieve through his works, he says he wants to “make people smarter. Urge them to make smarter opinion and judgement.” 

Since Dela Cruz wants us to make smarter opinions, one can attempt to do so by looking at his art critically, inspecting its numerous flaws. One is the not-so-subtle sexism, which may be interpreted from the artist’s exces­sive attribution of women to diabolic themes, reducing them, using the male gaze, to mere “objects of beau­ty.” Not to mention the Eurocentric approach used to render them. 

I hope it’s just a coincidence that the first work that he slashed, now his signature art style, he says, was a por­trait of a woman.