Born 1981, Dumaguete, Philippines
Lives and works in Makati, Philippines
Maria Taniguchi’s works encompass painting, sculpture, video and installation. Her practices investigate space and time along with social and historical contexts. Her series of “Untitled” brick paintings is an ongoing series that began in 2008. Each painting consists of seemingly countless rectangular cells, each one outlined by hand with graphite and filled with gray and black tones. The painstaking process creates a subtle yet complex pattern on the surface. These paintings develop to various extents, most of them reaching meters in size. The constructive structure embodies architectural elements, resulting in the paintings themselves manifesting as monumental existences within the space. The artist has referred to her brick paintings as the fundamental root of her larger artistic practice, while the other artworks such as sculptures and installations are reflection, or refractions of it.
Maria Taniguchi won the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award in 2015 and was a LUX Associate Artist in 2009. Recent exhibitions include the 12th Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders, Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Centre, Gwangju, South Korea (2018); 21st Biennale of Sydney, SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2018); History of a vanishing present: A prologue, the Mistake Room, Los Angeles, United States (2016); Afterwork, Para Site, Hong Kong (2016); Globale: New Sensorium, ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany (2016); The Vexed Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila, the Philippines (2015); and the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia (2015). Her work is held in a number of collections including the M+ Museum, Hong Kong; the Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; QAGOMA, Brisbane; and the K11 Art Foundation, Shanghai.