An Emancipation in Ink: Letting Your Hair Down
by Pauline Tayengco Diaz
“Let Your Hair Down”
Control is the personal struggle by many. But where most suffer from lack of it, visualist Mei Tayengco, in contrast, lives in excess of it. Daring to step beyond this, the recluse visualist, honors the emancipation of the female form in all her crowning glory mounting her first solo exhibit entitled “Let Your Hair Down.”
“It’s Meditative”
Every bristle is washed, every basin cleansed, every sheet readied and the latch to the room secured, all this set before a brush is ever reintroduced to the potency of ink. Mei describes the process as emotional and meditative in which, the universe of Mei Ink is let loose.
“A Rorschach”
Lead by the brush, it begins with shapeless forms that further into long wraith like figures crawling across the page beyond the control of its conduit, the artist. Although bound by principle to a monochromatic scheme she revels in the gradation left between the greys. “The potency of black” she describes “how little and how much damage it can do. But it can be used as a tool.” And so it is, the result forms the state of the mind and the reflection of an imbedded emotion, where the intention of the visualist is left secondary to a viewer’s interpretation, much like a Rorschach.
Over all, letting your hair down, is a freedom from control by the artist permitting herself to be engulfed by the puissance of ink. What is intriguing is that the end of each endeavor is not in full view until, you, the observer comes to discern for yourself.
MEI TAYENGCO reside in Marikina, Philippines
