The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia, 1996 : Report

miracles. My paintings take these stories as a starting point . . . These are paintings of history, class and culture . They tell of the history of Malaysia, the flow and migration of people from land to land. British colonialism and the colonisation of cultures, the clash and convergence of classes, the hopes and failures of a society. In search of faraway places refers to present day Malaysia. It illustrates contemporary Malaysians, who are often educated and work in countries like the US and Australia, as well as people from other countries who migrate to prosperous Malaysia. THE PHILIPPINES Charlie Co, a member of the important Philippine group Black Artists in Asia, is represented by three recent paintings: The last rites, Maynila and Fragile earth. Co paints directly from his emotional and social life in an often dreamy and quasi­ surrealistic style, his works recognisably set in his home town of Bacolod i n Negros. The paintings included in the Triennial, however, return to the more general social and political focus of his earlier works. Charlie Co's works owe their d istinctive character to sources in Philippine figurative painting and to his daily habit of drawing his dreams and commenting on scenes from everyday l ife . Francesca Enriquez's current interest involves examining the physical structures and spaces of the Philippine home. I n the installation The house. Everything is every thing, she creates images in oil paint directly onto the surfaces of hundreds of piled plaster casts of domestic fitments. She is also interested in the seductiveness of architecture and design and, as pa rt of her installation, has included an entirely repainted interior design magazine, as a form of both loving tribute and obsessive study. The artist wrestles with the problematic contemporary use of painting and deploys this tension to reflect on aspects of her experience as a woman in the domestic environment. My works explore the recesses of the psyche, all in all my perceptions of houses and their parts shape my thoughts, memories and dreams. The domestic spaces tell some kind of autobiographical story and are also about the development of painting. (extract from artist's statement) 17