After the whole 2022 National Elections fiasco, netizens went mad after seeing the missing Picasso painting reappearing on the wall of Imelda’s home recently. As the painting resurfaces and issues of ill-gotten wealth are being discussed again, this 22-year-old Filipino artist fearlessly painted his version of the famous Picasso painting.
Meet Jadie Pasaylo, a visual artist, student, and certified Iskolar ng Bayan, from University of The Philippines Diliman. Jadie is the artist behind the viral painting, “Declining Woman,” a masterpiece he created as an homage to Pablo Picasso’s “Femme Couchee VI (Reclining Woman VI).”
With a caption, "Wait lang parang may mali?????," Jadie shared his reimagined version of Picasso's painting with a surreal character that gives certain features the same as Imelda Marcos, which gained a lot of attention.
The “Declining Woman”
During our private interview, Jadie discussed the creation of his own version of Picasso’s artwork. He said, “I got the courage to make my own version of one of Picasso’s artworks because as an artist, I feel what Pablo Picasso must have felt, knowing that one of my artworks that I worked hard and spent time on just suddenly disappears. I am concerned about this issue because I am an artist. As visual artists, our responsibility is to be aware of what happens around us.”
Remember in 2014, the Picasso painting was one of eight paintings targeted to be seized. However, the one seized by the corruption court was later found to be a replica, according to Andres Bautista, the former chairman of the agency tasked with recovering the Marcos family’s ill-gotten wealth.
Furthermore, “The Kingmaker,” director Lauren Greenfield also confirmed that in the 2019 documentary about the Marcos family, they captured a footage of the Picasso painting after the 2014 seizure.
👍 This painting was also captured in #TheKingmaker https://t.co/cVLmGu7Qbp
— Andy Bautista (@ChairAndyBau) May 11, 2022
The Issue of Ill-gotten artworks
Jadie also explained that the issue of ‘ill-gotten artworks’ cannot be ignored. “Regardless of whose pieces get stolen, this is not a good thing. If this were true, the artist’s works must be returned to the rightful owner or caretaker. If the issue were not true, we will continue to call for solutions about this issue,” he added.
As he mentioned in his interview with the Manila Buletin Lifestyle, the “Declining Woman” took two weeks for him to complete and has now been sold. When asked about what art is, Jadie explained that art is political and should be political. “Art without such consciousness is bleak. People want to relate to art. They want something to find themselves in. It is our job as artists to expand this social awareness,” he replied.
Being the Artist of “Maluwag na Kaginhawaan”
In case you didn’t know, Jadie is also the artist behind the famous ayuda painting, titled “Maluwag na Kaginhawaan”. A painting of a single can of sardines on gray canvas which speaks volumes about the situation of the Philippines during pandemic. For Jadie, he sees this artwork as a game-changer. “Not only because it really helped me survive the pandemic, but it also cemented my purpose as an artist. I realized that I could amplify the cries of many through my art. It's comforting to realize that I have a place in this world,” he shared.
Jadie’s Art Style
As an artist who always strives for the line between the excessive and the minimal, he sometimes realizes that keeping it simple happens to be too exorbitant for the canvas. “I found the white canvas too loud and the void too clamorous, so I let my modesty take a portion of that intensity, and what I had is a drowning reflection of the world: detached, cold, and ever struggling,
“Falling in love with the simplicity that is life, I found a way to consolidate my idea inside austere and diminutive compositions. I desire that in my minimal encounters, one might find that even the smallest voices, like me, can be too loud to contain. But I never stay inside this bubble, either. I sometimes jump from my side of the line to the other to explore uncharted territories,” he explained.
By the end of our interview, Jadie left a short message to his fellow young Filipino artists, saying that Filipinos are artistic people. “So as long as they make art that's true to themselves and to what is really happening around them, art will always be meaningful,” he said.
