Harap-harapan

“Harap-harapan”

Oil on Canvas

24”x 36”

2022

"A man with great fortune, privilege and a position who chooses not even to glance back and reflect on what's happening in the lives of their people must be forced to reflect on their destiny once the people decide when enough is enough. A nod to an artwork by Belgian surrealist René Magritte titled: Not To Be Reproduced. This piece presents a man standing and staring at a mirror only not to find his face but the view of his behind, while his reflection's head is on fire. A passage inspires the fire in Maya Angelou's On The Pulse of Morning: But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow, I will give you no hiding place down here."

Christine Mae Callos is a Filipino artist based in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. With full support from her parents, her dreams of pursuing arts as a career began very early on in her life. She constantly competed in school's art competitions throughout her Elementary and High School days, and in each contest, she was determined to improve her crafts. Through these competitions, she decided to join visual arts groups that led to opening doors to many opportunities for painting exhibitions and mural commissions. Callos is currently enrolled in Bulacan State University as a Fine Arts student, majoring in Visual Communication. The decision to choose Visual Communication means that she is now broadening her knowledge of technical skills in more than one art medium. Callos's works are centralized on visualizing emotions, which leads to concepts leaning towards surrealism. She embraced symbolism and compressed it into her vision of a straightforward concept to convey a message.