02NOW. December 9, 2020 -- Art Cube Gallery

Film and music by Rogelio Castillo II

Not Just Collaborators, but Brothers:

02NOW by Mark Andy Garcia and Lynyrd Paras

by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana

Collaborations between artists are not rare, but one that celebrates a deep, abiding connection-and is expressed with new works that pay homage to each other's artistic vision and practice-is. In 02NOW. Mark Andy Garcia and Lynyrd Paras come together for a powerful, once-in-a-lifetime show that chronicles the creative journeys of both, and how their paths have intersected, run parallel to each other. and forked out towards their respective vistas of discovery in the last 15 years result of two artists merging their powers together but an acknowledgment of and a look-back at the perilous route they have taken in order to occupy their place in the art world.

The title offers us a mini-timeline of their friendship, their brotherhood. It was in 2002 when Garcia and Paras first met at the Technological University of the Philippines as students and budding artists.

Evidently, the art world then was not the same as it is now. There were much fewer galleries, collectors, and opportunities that would support the efforts of a young artist. An uphill battle. the life of the artist was fraught with unsold works. limited resources, and a string of disappointments. But what had gotten Garcia and Paras through that long rough paich were their unstinting belief in art, a certain confidence in their abilities, and the help they extended to each other when the going got tough.

Fifteen years later. Garcia and Paras find themseives as artistic collaborators in an exhibit whose title piece is a fusion of the portraits they did of each other. inflected with the radical gestures that form part of their signature style.

Paras painted Garcia as deep in the shadows, his eyes vulnerable, while Garcia painted Paras in colors of organic growth. In this universe occupied by the two. the various symbols that have indelibly marked their works--aspects of nature, implements of painting, and typography, among others—swirl around. on. and between them, held in orbit by the stability of the figures. There is palpable joy and mutual respect that pulses in this double portrait-the highest possible homage between two artists.

Garcia has chosen to unpack his through a series of sketches from the visual diaries he accomplished from 2008 to 2010, the period in his life marked with intense seif-scrutiny. In these works, one can glean the direct reference-of deep emotional and psychological states. For Paras, the creative process is externalized by a collection of objects that are totems of his inner demons.

Occupying a room is a video that shows him hammering. burning, and scissoring his works-gestures of destruction that are metaphorical acts of exorcism From these creative processes are forged the suites of work that reveal the highly distinctive styles of the two artists: Garcia with his highly expressionistic, improvisational strokes that accrue to the frenetic visions of the natural world: Paras. with his polished figurative works juxtaposed with symbolically charged elements. What Garcia and Paras share, however. is the emphasis on autobiography as an authenticating experience in their works as well as the treatment of the support as a staging ground for the artist's gestures, with the pictorial surface made eventful by pigments, impasto, and other radical interventions.

02NOW, aside from highlighting the contact points between their works and teasing out the creative threads that they have been pursuing through their latest works, illustrates the oftentimes untold stories of artists in their mutual support, of how these highly relational connections can establish the bedrock for an enduring commitment in the arts. Most of the time, it is a solemn, solitary pursuit, but kinships, such as what Mark Andy Garcia and Lynyrd Paras have made manifest in this show. make it less lonely and less crushing, encouraging one to paint from day to day until those days become months. years. decades—a lifetime.