Another Dish on the Table

In this exhibition, Reynold De la Cruz dives into an in-depth study of the life and mind of Leonardo Da Vinci. In essence, Da Vinci was a rebel. Though not in the loud, political sense, his rebellion was one that constantly pushed the boundaries of the customary and what was accepted or even allowed in his time. Fundamentally, this is similar to how Dela Cruz vandalizes existing historical aesthetics, because graffiti and vandalism themselves are simply powerful tools of rebellion that have continuously challenged authority across the ages. Dela Cruz subverts convention by incorporating cartoon images and pop culture symbols into an otherwise traditional, realistic painting. If we think about it, Da Vinci, despite his work being canonized within the classical tradition of academic aesthetics and Renaissance idealism, there is still a strong aspect of his work that deviates from its own period. Due to his mastery of science and the human anatomy (among many other things), he was able to create a certain type of psychological realism when painting images. Psychological, in the sense that his work was able to create narratives that expressed inner conflict and tension, as specifically seen in the famous Mona Lisa painting, a smile that we just can’t simply put together; is it a quiet, withheld smile? Is it a smile that suggests a secret subtly being given away by the eyes? Leonardo didn’t just paint faces; he painted emotion and plunged his audience into a psychological state of being. In a way, he was a rebel of the very period he represents; in an era where the most revered artists paint saints and divine figures with halos and golden auras of light, Da Vinci rendered them as something closer to humans: beautifully fragile and almost with a sense of dark, brooding mystery.

The main opus for this exhibition is a colossal 8 x 25 feet modern rendition of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. In this painting, Dela Cruz creates a sprawling tableau of images that operate on the aesthetics of excess, a method that simply mimics the deliberate act of cultural layering that we, as Filipinos, have traditionally embraced since time immemorial. What might be seen elsewhere as overcrowding, we interpret as a celebration of abundance. In the center of the painting lies a lechon, the essential heart of every Filipino celebration and from Christ’s head, a prismatic halo bursts forth, which coupled with Dela Cruz’s signature bursts of visual explosions becomes an inviting image of a feast, much like how a The Last Supper painting is almost always essentially displayed on the wall of every pinoy dining area. Catholics or not, it stops becoming a religious motif and instead becomes a psycho socio-cultural one. Reynold proceeds to exaggerate this idea and layers it with icons of commercial consumption, historical imageries and specters of war, an act that blurs the time and period of the painting. It becomes a temporal device and a reminder of how history is often cursed to repeat itself.

Perhaps it’s that Filipino impulse to fill empty spaces with stories, symbolisms, and festive noise. The culture of fiesta is a refusal of emptiness, and as seen in the painting, a clash of Catholic iconography, pop ephemera, and graffiti-inspired images are depicted to wreak discord and havoc on an otherwise quiet rendition of a solemn dinner with Christ’s apostles.One may ask, where does all this energy come from? Perhaps it's the centuries of colonial rule that the Filipino people have endured in which we were trained to be quiet and docile, not just in the face of our colonial masters but even in the confines of our own homes. But in the streets, and in the face of freedom, all that repressed energy becomes color and voice. Loudness then becomes a response to reclaiming space that is rightfully ours. Because when your history is often silenced, loudness becomes a form of remembering and resistance, much like the historic Cry of Pugad Lawin, where a fed-up Andres Bonifacio and his fellow Katipuneros ripped their cedulas in an act of explosive declaration from three centuries of oppressive Spanish rule. In this context, Dela Cruz’s visual loudness becomes an uproar that refuses silence. It declares presence. In a world that often asks Filipino culture to be quiet, refined, or obedient through Western eyes, this work shouts back, showing how Filipinos, despite being the most hospitable of people, are also the most loving, fiery and brave.

Perhaps this is where Dela Cruz’s enduring fascination with Da Vinci stems from; aside from his savant like skill in painting, he was simply a rebel who humanized the sacred. Like how graffiti shatters the sacredness of the very structure it vandalizes, Dela Cruz confronts with his work what society considers sacred—whether it's high art, cultural nostalgia, or simply a beautiful face. When explosions of comic book sound effects burst from traditional Renaissance imagery, the result is not merely a parody; it’s a violent collision of eras and generational ideologies in which beauty is curated through its power to survive.