Mixed Media Assemblage on Canvas (Traditional & Digital Drawing on Paper and Cardboard, Thirfted Drapery and Rhinestones) | 60 “ by 20 “ | 2024

This piece is inspired by my aunt who is so close to her relationship with God that she was given a “vision” through dreaming, where she can see a vague glimpse of the future. She read our family in 2018, where she dreamt of heavy pouring rain, to which she claimed was a sign of abundance for us. All did happen around this time, from one of us receiving a job promotion to buying a new home. I personify her vision through a Philippine precolonial goddess of rain and wind, Anitun Tabu. I combined multiple mediums and varying textures from the glossy print of my digital drawings, smooth pencil crayon cut out drawings to the stoning/bedazzeling of the washed drapery to create a seamlessly cohesive divine figure inspired by 2000s fashion.

The purple colour choice was a nod to pop culture, specifically Prince’s 1984 song “Purple Rain”; coincidentally, the aunt inspired by this piece also loves purple. Rain is typically seen as gloomy, awful, or destructive as a typhoon. I subvert rain instead as ethereal, joyous, and abundant, as it puts into perspective how mythology, folklore, and geographical conditions can be psychological in a sense that we can determine our spiritual beliefs, behaviours, and core identity through our surroundings.