Wawi Navarroza
Mouth of Pearls: Oryental & Overseas (Self-Portrait)
2022
Archival pigment ink on Hahnemühle Photo Lustre mounted on dibond / artist frame with wooden mat board and glazed, colored frame
135 x 101 cm
The Philippines has been referred to as “The Pearl of the Orient”; curiously, Istanbul/Türkiye, the place where the artist was living at the time of the creation of this artwork, was historically also called the same. In this colorful self-portrait, Navarroza plays with Orientalist tropes of the imagined “East” and the exotic “Other” by placing herself as the oriental odalisque gazing at herself in the mirror. She subverts the stereotype with a chain of pearls in her mouth and a riddle-like arrangement of symbolic objects around her: a balikbayan box, patterns and textiles from different origins, the mint green-colored bundles signifying pasalubong gifts from far away. The artist pays homage to Filipinos as transnationals, the OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers), the migrants, the Filipinos in diaspora.
The piece also underlines the peripatetic nature of artists who always had the destiny to venture beyond. With photographic sleight of hand, the image echoes the flatness of traditional Ottoman miniature painting and contemporary collage. Navarroza’s vibrant use of color reclaims polychrome as the artistic heritage of the wide spectrum of many Asias. Her layered multi-cultural referencing brings conversations about self-representation, the artist as woman, and the metamorphosis of the Filipino who has traveled the world and has arrived at his/her own self-determination.
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