Tin Garcia on women in bondage: 'It’s all about choice. And I like to glorify choice'

Thin Tin Garcia, Tintin to others, Tintinnabulation to me, has always struck me as one of those fascinating, in-your-face young women (my measure of youth being those below 40). She is refreshingly but not brutally frank, the edges softened by her love for, uhm, floral Doc Martens.

So it is fitting that her joint exhibit with Lala Gallardo is called “Softcorps,” a play on the term “soft core” pornography because her paintings depict bound women while Lala works with fragile paper. (The show is ongoing at Pablo Gallery, Cubao Expo, Araneta Center, Quezon City, until May 6.)

Her position (I just realized there’s an unintended double entendre in my use of the word “position”) on her painting subjects may invite some controversy, she being a feminist who doesn’t shirk from being called one.

Here is how she explains her position (there, I typed it again!): “There has always been talk of The Male Gaze in art, when the viewer is subjected to the perspective of a straight male while looking at a painting or work of art. I painted my bound women to show that they chose to be bound and they would gladly be subjects of the male gaze if they can get some cathartic pleasure from it. There’s a lot of hair-splitting on whether this consciously objectifies women, but I still think paintings and works of art are best when they are left alone to ‘talk’ to the viewer and tell their own stories. It’s the only way they can have personal resonance.”

Furthermore, the 34-year-old Tin, a University of the Philippines fine arts graduate, is “intrigued by the bondage and bondage/discipline-sadomasochism (BDSM) lifestyle for a number of reasons. While it may seem like a chaotic, free-for-all kink to many, it actually has a lot of layers of trust involved before a successful BDSM partnership can push through. Suffice it to say it’s all about choice. And I like to glorify choice.”

She cites a precedent in art history: “Rembrandt painted Andromeda chained to the rocks, awaiting rescue from Perseus, which is what I’d loosely call an example of a bound woman in art. But I painted women who chose to be bound and do not wait for someone to unbind them unless they say so. Or unless they utter a ‘safe word,’ another facet of BDSM trust.”

How a singularly sensational woman like Tin arrived at her own style goes back to early summers when her mother enrolled her and her brother at summer art schools to "prevent us from wreaking havoc on our walls with colored markers. I remember drawing on my textbooks at Saint Theresa’s College instead of taking down notes. That made my school books un-hand-me-down-able to younger kith and kin. As for exhibiting my stuff, my earliest experience would be at the former Museum of Philippine Art near Rizal Park in the 1980s as an eight-year old student.”

Her former STC classmates find her “weird” because she chooses to remain “unhitched.” She can relate only with gays, straight men and a few women her age like the de Leon sisters, Sinag and Ani, and visual artist Lyra Garcellano.

As for women my age who consider Tin barkada, it is for reasons remarkably obvious.

Photo shows an oil painting by Tin Garcia.