Manlapaz, Joey

Deco Series (1998 – 2002) I first visited South Beach Miami (Florida) in the late 1990s and was immediately captivated by the intense heat beating on the pastel-colored deco buildings along the shoreline. The smell of the salty air and humidity brought me back to the tropical islands of the Philippines where I lived since birth until coming to the United States with my parents as a young teenager. I continued my visits for another 4 years, each time getting totally immersed in the culture of sun worship, international cuisine and Latin music. My portfolio as a photorealist painter focuses primarily on Washington, DC architecture. The brief departure to create a body of work on deco buildings of South Beach was truly inspirational and challenging. Continuing my compositional preference, I closely crop the image to explore the more abstract qualities of the architectural façades resulting in flat and geometric surfaces, which allowed me to observe and capture the intensity of sunlight that seemed to make their surfaces vibrate.