REY FRANCIS DOMINIC TATAD

BFA - DRAWING

Rey Tatad is an emerging artist of Filipino descent based in Regina, Saskatchewan. Tatad is currently working in his fourth year of studies and will be graduating in the next year of his BFA program from the University of Regina. Tatad mainly works in drawing using pencil crayons and to a lesser extent, watercolour and graphite to explore the ideas of cultural identity, hegemony, the legacies of colonialism, inherited traditions, the loss of faith in religion, immigration and the globalization of peoples and ideas in the contemporary age.

Artist Statement: 

My artworks  intertwine the objectivity of history and the subjectivity of experiences to critically examine the ideas of immigration, biculturalism, culture shock and identity. My transition from a Filipino, born and raised in the Philippines, into a Canadian citizen informs my work. Through my representative drawing process and the  recontextualization of the Western canon and the dramatic nature of religious Renaissance art, I explore the sobering experience of unfamiliarity brought about by living in a foreign and dominant culture and remark on the profound influence of Western culture to Filipino society.

Canada has an emerging and sizable community of Filipinos since the latter half of the nineteenth century striving to make Canada their second home while staying true to their heritage. In this process of acculturation, it is inevitable that there are beliefs, standards and practices that will be in odds with one another. Having lived in the Philippines for sixteen years, I have become familiar with my home country and the forces that have shaped it to what it is today. Alluding to the country’s history, colonialism has left a legacy of values and beliefs, for better and for worse, ever since the Christianization of the islands that is impossible to ignore. A nationalistic sense of pride emerged from this ethos focused on community, hierarchy and God thus I always thought to myself that this has been and always will be the way to live.

My mother eventually became one of the many overseas Filipino workers who immigrated to Canada for better opportunities. Having stayed for a while, she sponsored the rest of us to come and make a new life here in Canada. A profound sense of adventure and curiosity flooded my mind that romanticized the Canadian landscape and people for me. After having been settled, expectations and reality collide. I find myself in a world of binaries that were both awe-inspiring and uncanny: from the cluttered and hilly terrain of the Philippines to the flat and open fields of the Canadian prairies, the dogma of religion to the secularism of faith, collectivism versus individualism, free will versus fatalism and the division of Eastern and Western family structures. 

This balancing act of acceptance, rejection and hybridization of beliefs for an immigrant culture to be accustomed to a dominant one is what I find captivating for my subject matter for my drawings. Working in realism and detail-heavy work, I investigate my familiarity with my local culture as well as Canadian culture. I expand on this by tying in this information with both countries’ geopolitical and historical significance that necessitated the formation of their national identities.

I am informed by the works of artists of the Renaissance such as Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel including contemporary artists that subvert the old master’s style of composition and colour like Kent Monkman. By utilizing Western aesthetics and devices such as the hierarchic scale that coincided with the Renaissance, I am using Filipino imagery and symbols to emphasize the colonized peoples and establish the influence of both cultures to each other in the Philippines as one of the most culturally Westernized countries in Asia. It is necessary for me to present my background contextualized in both the Philippines and especially, Saskatchewan and show it in a didactic nature and contrast it with my experiences and narrative living here as an immigrant and into a citizen. It is an ongoing narrative that continues to evolve as I will be referencing my past and have it affect the present and future to connect two different worlds to offer a sense of belonging, foster community and inform audiences from a unique perspective.