THE FIND ] Dex Fernandez's writings on the wall poster

Die, Die, My Darling and Naivete by Dex Fernandez

I first met Dex Fernandez at the Manila Art 09 last July or August, my memory of those times are a bit hazy (as it should be). Anyway, enough about me. Dexter Fernandez. He was introduced to me by Osie Tiangco and Yo Garcia of Pablo Gallery when I asked them who did the wonderful glass-encased images on their booth. It was, I thought, one of only two fresh ideas among the sea of same old-same olds in that gathering of the country's top galleries. Dex happened to be there that Sunday having a chat with the Pablo girls. He was shy and courteous and said very little. When will he have an exhibition, I asked the girls. Soon, they said, soon. Maybe next year. Well, we can't wait. And then we found this.

His main medium are vintage posters that he sources from thrift shops in Manila. Some are from his personal collection. He paints on them, draws on them, makes intricate tattoos, writes profane, perverse, ghastly statements on these rather saintly, if a bit eerie, idealized portraits of people. "It gives me a nostalgic feeling," he says. "And I'm happy giving them a new story through the juxtaposition of images and icons." His writings and drawings never overwhelm the original image; they only provide a layer of subversion much like street graffitis, a strong influence in this young artist's works.

Fernandez opposite Epjay Pacheco's spray-painted image of Dionisia Pacquiao at Pablo.

Dex, now 25, grew up in Caloocan and studied art and advertising at the TUP Manila. His influences are tattoo art, street art, and even Art Brut/Outsider art, originally coined for artworks done by asylum inmates but have eventually included works by anyone who have no contacts with mainstream art or art institutions.

"For me, the essence of beauty can be seen through alteration
of real and unreal
of good and evil
of magnificence and unsightly
of light and darkness
of pure and complex.
That in the end we create a new story.
And the more we complicate it, even more stories come out."

We like.


Photographs courtesy of the artist.