Thomas Daquioag opens his seventh solo exhibition, Invasion, at the Boston Gallery last March 19, Saturday.

Invasion explores the thrift shop environment of Bangkal, Makati that the artist currently lives and works in.  Daquioag witnessed the transformation of his community from having ordinary homes converted into perpetual garage sale venues, his neighbors’ lifestyles centered on the procurement and disposal of objects which rally the entrepreneurial spirit of the Filipino to survive and have a source of home-based livelihood in the highly urbanized setting.

He utilizes his modern-day, every man superhero characters to convey human nature’s fixation with mundane objects and dissects the attraction of owning hand-me-downs from previous owners who have disposed of them. With oil paint on medium to large scale works including his recent Philippine Art Awards Finalist piece, Daquioag examines the surplus merchandise economy and the figures that function in this system as both consumers and agents.

Thomas Daquioag graduated in 1994 with a degree in Painting from the University of Santo Tomas.  After his first solo show was mounted in the Cultural Center of the Philippines, he became a recipient of the Dharmasiswa Arts and Culture Studies Grant in Bali, Indonesia, and the Asian Artist Freeman Fellowship of the Vermont Studio Center in Vermont, USA.  He has exhibited his works in New York, Beijing, Singapore and Nagoya while participating in group shows in Manila. Daquioag is also an experienced workshop teacher, well-traveled performance artist and art competition veteran with several awards under his utility belt.

Invasion will be on show at the Boston Gallery until April 6, 2011. Boston Gallery is located at 72 Boston St. corner Lantana St., Cubao, Quezon City. For more details, please contact 7229205.