Maria Taniguchi works across a diverse range of media including painting, video, sculpture, pottery, printmaking, drawing, and writing. Her practice focuses upon the possibilities, process, and materiality of the artwork, and how these formal ideas unfold within the syncretic cultural context of the Philippines and the legacies of modernism.
Taniguchi is well known for her ongoing series of untitled and unnumbered brick paintings that were initiated in 2008. Each painting takes the form of a large-format canvas whose surface has been covered in a meticulous arrangement of monochromatic hand-painted bricks. For Taniguchi, the methodical and time-intensive process of creating the brick paintings is an important aspect of the work for it requires discipline and a singular focus. This repetitive process creates a precise, minimal appearance when viewed from a distance. It is only upon closer inspection that the inconsistencies, unpredictability, and contingency of the artist’s hand, materials, technique, and location are revealed. Taniguchi has also related these works to an external mechanisation of the body as well as a reference to the cells that make up a biological organism. From this position, her works are a poetic and layered reflection of presence, time and labour as they relate to craftsmanship and the history of the Philippines. These brick paintings are hybrid objects that the artist considers to be both paintings and sculptural forms. She also recognises her brick paintings as the fundamental root of her larger artistic practice.
Taniguchi graduated with a BFA in Sculpture from The University of Philippines, Manila in 2007 and with a MFA from Goldsmiths, London in 2009. In 2015, she won the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award and was a LUX Associate Artist in 2009. She has recently exhibited at the Biennale Arte 2024, Venice; 12th Gwangju Biennale, 2018; 21st Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, Sydney, 2018; Para Site, Hong Kong, 2016; ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, 2016; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila, 2015; and the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane, 2015.
