GERALDINE JAVIER

From her Plaster Saints series of works, acclaimed female painter Geraldine Javier creates a set of figures and objects with a significant affinity to our daily lives; interrogating their iconic value as objects of strong emotions. Some are immediately comprehensible, such as the sculptures of the Laughing Buddha or the Virgin Mary. Others are more subtle: a marble angel laying his face upon clasped hands and children's toys. All these everyday icons awake devotion and attachment within their owners. The patron saints evoke religious worship; while the toys create tenderness and nostalgia for the beloved stuffed animals which lived our beds, and whose fuzzy memories linger all the way into our adult lives. Clearly reflected in these series of images is Javier's penchant of portraying textural, repetitive patterns of a decorative nature - such as the strawberry patterned wallpaper behind the Buddha. Say Hello to Charlie (Lot 2430), a child's charming teddy bear, is covered in a floral paisley print reminiscent of the 1960s, which imbues the stuffed animal with a nostalgic yet objective contemplation, and a sense of historical import.