Art Verité Gallery

Painting Feeling

RC Caringal is an artist unafraid to paint extreme emotions. In her first solo exhibition, Ignited, the artist chronicled the cracks and fissures of the traditional family unit. Her paintings depicted a drab and dreary domestic space that barely accommodated the people who inhabited it as they undertook their emotional journey alone, bearing their own traumas.

For her second solo show, At the End of the Day, Caringal focused on individuals suffering from mental and emotional illnesses. Shedding light on the taboo topic, she suggested how pervasive mental health issues are, painting figures pushed to the edge of sanity, stricken by a sense of hopelessness, desperation, and inertia.

The artist, in her third and recent solo exhibition, Nonsense, continues to explore her obsession with the human form and its individuality, delving deep into the psychological and emotional burden that every person carries. In a style reminiscent of Lucian Freud, the series of paintings features extreme close-ups of faces, prioritizing the eyes as the primary seat of expression.

The human body has long been a favorite subject of painters, with many choosing to focus on the face and the eyes in particular. By depicting in her subjects in extreme close-up, Caringal captures the complexity of emotions and expressions, as well as the subtle nuances that can be missed in a wider view. By doing so, the artist conveys deeper understanding of her subjects’ internal state, inviting the viewer to connect to the works on a more visceral level.

Not one to turn her back on difficult issues, Caringal fearlessly conveys a range of emotions, from anger to terror to grief to seething revenge. There’s an almost Biblical undertone in most of her works, especially the intense drama as portrayed by Romantic artists in their creations. In the case of her paintings, the artist emphasizes that the eyes are not simply the windows to the soul but also the soul directly looking outward at the world. Some of her subjects stare back at us, their expressions raw and unfiltered, unafraid to confront the viewer with their emotions.

The title of the exhibition, Nonsense, possibly alludes to the loss of meaning in a world that has gone awry. Through her works, Caringal invites us to recognize that the we possess the same range of emotions as those of her figures as well as allow us to confront the chaos and confusion of the world and to find meaning amidst the madness.

– Carlomar Arcangel Daoana