Metaphorical Suffocation

In his sculpture, Metaphorical Suffocation, 2014, Jigger Cruz reflects on the burden of Western art history on contemporary artists from other parts of the world. In his sculpture of a human figure weighed down by a painted canvas, Cruz engages with the artistic legacy of colonialism in the Philippines and the dominance of Western art historical perspectives in the field of contemporary visual arts globally. Symbolising the artist’s resistance against the privileging of Western art traditions is the abstract canvas that covers the figure’s body, its surface redolent with thick impasto and splotches of paint deliberately added by the artist over his own Western-influenced base painting. The figure’s bare legs are visible under this painted shroud, suggesting that blindness and suffocation are not inevitable for non-Western artists. Rather, Cruz suggests that a way to move forward exists for multiple artistic perspectives and histories to develop and thrive.