Diamonds are forever, and so are glazed sculptures. Like the world's precious stones, Anna Varona's sculptures radiate fineness that can only be achieved with the help of high temperature kilns and a distinctive creativity. One of her works is Windang, a two-foot tall ceramic piece double-fired at 1,030 degrees Celsius. The unique style of creating the piece requires the use of furnace to turn it into a glassy and classy piece of artwork.
It represents a distressed figure of a woman's upper body concealed in a glazy covering. The irregular edges and layers were ironically combined with a gleaming coating, providing a very interesting contradiction.
The contradiction seems to display a woman's strength despite life's trials. The sculpture’s title Windang, a Filipino term which means shattered or ruined, connotes the sculpture’s form. Windang’s shape could be a symbol of a woman’s misery and irregularities while its shiny veneer could be a sign of her resilience to life’s struggles and hardships.
The grey color also adds to the sculpture’s gloomy emotion while the horizontal lines creating the layer effects reinforce its slightly odd form.
This sculpture, which embodies tough and strong women of today, also seems to reflect the Philippine society’s respect for women. Our country’s regard for women has been established since the 1980’s, making way for various Filipinas to enter and succeed in different fields such as Politics, Science, and the Arts.
This kind of glazed sculptures, rare as a gem in the Philippine contemporary art scene, deserves attention for the exceptional technique used in its creation and for the Filipino skill it displays. - EDREE ESTAURA
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