Tiffany Lafuente

Without Inhibitions 

Tiffany Lafuente pushes the limits of her creativity

Text by Hannah Jo Uy

October 22, 2018 / C-2

An authentic creative prac­tice is one that pushes you beyond your limits—the very kind that artist Tiffany Lafuente lives for. 

“I make sure that I make myself un­comfortable,” she says, describing how she paints. “I always like to create some­thing that takes me out of my comfort zone—a really powerful, new, and cre­ative idea. I drag myself into uncharted territory during the process, challeng­ing my imagination. You raise the bar so you can break through it, even when it forces you to be experimental.” 

The allure of undiscovered possi­bilities pushes Lafuente to dive into the unknown depths of her aesthetic sensibilities. Although she has always been creatively inclined, she cred­its her decision to fully pivot into the artistic field to an encounter with the 2011 works of Jojo Legaspi and Ka­loy Sanchez. 

“I’ve never seen Philippine art as strong as theirs,” she says. “Their works are so rebellious, rendered without inhibitions. I told myself that if I can express myself freely like they do, sign me up.” 

Lafuente said that she thrives on a mixture of intuition and discipline. In­variably drawn into the often chaotic challenge posed by the empty canvas, she stresses that each piece is born from the momentum of following a pus-and-pull cycle. “Creativity is obsessive problem-solving,” she adds. “I always chal­lenge myself to explore my imagination. Also, being consistent is cru­cial for one’s artistic potential.” 

She explores her potential in her debut solo exhibition, “Only The Bad and The Ugly,” at the SixInch Gallery, Ronac Art Center. The featured pieces serve as Lafuente’s mental playground, where she unleashed her thoughts in a wildly ad­venturous manner. The merit of the collection lies not only in her abil­ity to express herself with such abandon, but also in what she gained from it. 

“There are some pieces that I gladly took the risk to experi­ment on,” she explains. “From there, I’ve made some exciting new discoveries in art which I can explore for the next show or I can make anoth­er set of series out of it.” Lafu­ente says that she is already ex­ploring the idea of making sculp­tures and instal­lations. 

In addition to the influence of local artists, Ger­man artists also had a significant impact on Lafu­ente’s personal style. She’s fasci­nated with Georg Baselitz, Neo Rauch, Gerhard Richter, and Martin Kippen­berger, which she greatly ad­mires for swing­ing between playfulness and solemnity, while remaining deep­ly expressive. She adopts the same earnestness in her own works, which offer both overt representations and juxtapositions in suggestive contexts. But just as she refuses to be tethered to one genre, she is equally adventurous when it comes to her subject matter. 

There is a latent sort of provocat ion in Lafuente’s works, direct­ed toward her audience and also to her­self. There is a wild qual­ity in her a p p r o a c h , which invites viewers to be privy to her own journey of self-discovery, as she delves into different subject matters and themes throughout bursts of creative restlessness.

Reading between the lines, how­ever, audiences may find subtle, yet sexually-charged allusions in her works. The sophisticated manner in which she integrates these under­tones could be seen as a celebration of the erotic nature of freedom and catharsis that comes with disengag­ing from all restraints. 

As a full time artist, Lafuente is looking forward to reaching her maximum potential—not as a means to an end, but only to be in a new plat­form to push herself further. “Even if you’re already there, you should never stop and just keep on evolv­ing as an artist. Right now, since this is just my first solo show, there’s a lot of room for improvement,” she admits. “It’s essential to reflect and correct your mistakes, to set the bar higher for the next show. Progress and improvement is the main goal, and each show should be better than your previous one.”