The Art of Tony Twigg, Now a Book

Tony Twigg – an extraordinary artist who has spent the past 15 years making art in the Philippines - and Gina Fairley, an art writer specializing in Southeast Asian contemporary art, are in the Philippines for release of the book, Tony Twigg: Encountering the Object. More than a coffee table book, if offers readers a unique visual journey that joins the dots between objects found in the streets that surround us as they weave their casual beauty into Twigg’s timber constructions.

Since first visiting Manila in 1993, Twigg has become a fixture of the Philippine art scene and has exhibited regularly with Galleria Duemila. His art works have entered major private and museum collections locally including the Ateneo Art Gallery and the Bencab Museum Twigg’s wall-based sculptures are memorable for their hybrid aesthetics and spatial play that, like Manila, blends the anarchic barong barong with the stacked skyline of Makati. And, while they have been experienced by a generation of young Philippine artists, the book offers a different experience to readers expanding that experience beyond the Philippines.

It captures the spirit of travel and encounter that Twigg has embraced over the past decade, moving from Manila to Mindanao, across the Sulu Sea to Borneo Malaysia, to Singapore’s pristine metropolis and beyond. It could be said that Twigg, as an artist, negotiates a particular cultural slipstream that is a condition of our times – his art sits outside geographic borders and captures the kind of energy or visual pulse that is Asia. Tony Twigg: Encountering the Object explores these relationship by pairing apparently disparate images across its pages – such as an image of a bamboo fence or a stack of palengke crates with Twigg’s more refined abstract timber arrangements.

Edited and designed by Gina Fairley and published by www.slot.net.au with the assistance of the Australia-Malaysia Institute, Tony Twigg: Encountering the Object will be distributed in four countries. The book will be sold in the Philippines at PHP 350.00 and is available from Galleria Duemila.

Both the Editor Gina Fairley and artist Tony Twigg are available for interview. Contact the gallery through Eryl Torres at Tel. No. (632) 831-9990 or Telefax (632) 833-9815. Galleria Duemila is located at 210 Loring Street, Pasay City and is open Mondays to Saturdays from 10 am to 6 pm. For more information, you may email: duemila@mydestiny.net or visit our website at www.galleriaduemila.com.