ARTIST STATEMENT
To express an idea or concept through art, one must have the ability to actualize that thought.
It seems, now, it has become difficult for me to actualize a plan or intention to create art that in the past came without doubt or difficulty. The current state of the world is at my front door. To walk through that gateway, knowledge absorbs me and changes my approach to creating art.
My painting ‘Silencing Explodes’ selected for Windows to the Inside Expressions of Mental Health Online Exhibition presented by Woman Made Gallery, was created during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
This painting has an expressive point of view of my ideas and a constant search to interpret feelings during the pandemic and beyond.
As an artist, being alone is part of the journey to conceptualizing ideas in creating art. Isolation’s power to unlock Pandora’s box was evident during the discourse of the pandemic. As a Filipino-Chinese Female Artist, during my solitude, I became aware of continuing racial tensions against Asian Americans. I awoke to how beauty standards were marketed and directed to one ethnic race. I realized the ways I had been mistreated and judged throughout the majority of my youth and adulthood. I once sought therapy only to realize that the therapist who was listening didn’t understand my background and could not relate to my history. This awareness and understanding surfaced onto my canvas.
When your life is disrupted and has no alignment; a person becomes obsessed with the definition of placement and existence, correctness, right and wrong. This thought is even more elevated during these fragile times. ‘Silencing Explodes’ will visually take you through colors and shapes, which are built through many layers of paint and the application of mark making using different tools, expressing determination and balance.
And in that, ‘Silencing Explodes’ is a glimpse at the present as well as the past.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Pia Pilar Reynaldo was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Reynaldo is an abstract painter. Her abstract paintings are powerful, meditative, and emotional. They represent feelings of the present and of the past. Her distinctive style is representative in her strong brush strokes that project movement, and raw passion.
Reynaldo was recognized and awarded the “Outstanding Emerging Artist” in January 2021 for “HerStory 2020-2021” an online exhibition of Art by Women, presented by the Manhattan Arts International. In February 2022 Reynaldo’s painting ‘Malicious Whispers’ received Special Recognition Category for Excellence in Art and featured in the 11th Annual “All Women” Art Exhibition presented by Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery. In May 2021 her painting ‘Solitude’s Expectations’ was selected in “The Healing Power of ART In Honor of Nature” Online Exhibition, and in October 2021 her painting ‘Malicious Whispers’ was featured “The Healing Power of ARTS & ARTISTS” website, an online article about artists and the influence of nature in their process to creating art. Reynaldo exhibited at The Other Art Fair 2019 Chicago, Illinois, presented by Saatchi Art. Reynaldo’s work has been on view at the Vail Public Library, Vail, Colorado in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Reynaldo earned a Bachelors of Arts degree in Graphic Design from Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She and her husband split their time living in Colorado and Wisconsin.
© Pia Pilar Reynaldo