Slowly, We Dance: Movement in the Art of Katrina Cuenca
Katrina Cuenca’s works capture the hypnotic attraction of movement and the way it connects with us on a deeper, spiritual level.
Words Mara Fabella
Photography Jovel Lorenzo
January 3, 2024
This is an excerpt from Art+ Magazine Issue 88. To read the full story, get the latest issue available on collectibles by artplus, Shopee, and on select stores of National Bookstore and Fully Booked.
Cuenca prefers not to limit her works by labels like “abstraction” or “figurative art.” For in her works is the potential to tap into both worlds: the transcendent nature of abstraction and the familiarity of representational forms. She calls her works non-representational and is instead inspired by what she sees around her rather than directly depicting them. Cuenca finds herself transfixed by motion in the world around us, from the natural movement of flower petals, to the elegant maneuvers of fish fins through water. In treading the line between representation and evocation, she leaves her artworks open to channel different experiences and memories.
In her solo show Slowly We Unfurl (2022) at Galerie Joaquin, she exhibited a series of works that conveyed the essence of unraveling. “I wanted to somehow depict how humanity is reblossoming after all the quarantines and lockdowns,” Cuenca says. Despite her pastel colors and luminous backdrops, her palette is subdued, as if echoing the first glimpse of a sunrise. Her branching lines, traveling outward from an unseen center, signal an awakening of sorts. One might instantly associate her works with flowers. In Cuenca’s works, we see the power of visual language, however enigmatic it may be, to express meaning on multiple levels, from eliciting impressions of nature, to invoking the human experience.
Experimentation is an essential aspect of Cuenca’s practice. Part of what formed her signature color palette was her work with gold leaf and figuring out which hues worked best with the material on both a visual and technical level. Drawing on her knowledge of industrial materials, she would also experiment with dichroic film—a material often used to give surfaces a polychromatic appearance. The effect is tangible in her work, particularly in her sculptures, where colors naturally diffuse into each other.
In the group show A Bend In the Path Takes You Somewhere (2022) at Galerie Stephanie, Cuenca exhibited both sculptures and paintings alongside fellow artists Gabby Prado and Megan Hildebrand. Expressing the exhibit’s ideas of unexpected journeys, the colors across the folds of her sculptures metamorphose as seamlessly as she manipulates the material of the work itself—a rigid copper sheet rendered fluid, as if it was carried by water.
There are qualities both distinct and shared between Cuenca’s paintings and sculptures. Movement is static in both kinds of works, yet we observe different shades to its depiction across the two- or three-dimensional planes. In her paintings, motion takes on a more symbolic character. As with her works in Slowly We Unfurl, we observe the blossoming rather than the trajectories themselves. Whereas in her sculpture, we can more closely follow the directionality of the movement. The movement in Cuenca’s paintings almost take on a logic of their own, as if each branching fin were a new organic limb not necessarily having grown from another. In her copper sculptures, lines of motion are more unified, as we observe the way a single sheet can be manipulated as gracefully as paper. Both sculpture and painting are bound by their hypnotic power to draw the eye across the breadth of the work, trusting the journey each skillfully rendered line will guide us through.
Katrina Cuenca wearing Nathan Clothiers. Photo by Jovel Lorenzo. 1/3
Katrina Cuenca wearing Nathan Clothiers. Photo by Jovel Lorenzo. 2/3
Katrina Cuenca wearing Nathan Clothiers. Photo by Jovel Lorenzo. 3/3
Written by Mara Fabella, Photography Jovel Lorenzo, Creative Direction Kim Albalate, Stylists Nikki Bañaga, Clyemae Suarez Make-up Artist Mary Ann Obias, Hairstylist Misty Gabriel, Sittings Editor Mika Reyes, Shoot Coordinator Coleen Wong
