Kapanganakan

This “KAPANGANAKAN” (NATIVITY in Tagalog), is my ethnic version of the holy family right after Christ’s birth. Though Jesus was a Jew, it is important for every nation and ethnicity to see themselves in God’s image as the Bible says in Genesis 1:27. 

I put Joseph in the foreground. In most nativities, he is an important figure but relegated to the middle or background. In this image, he is in close-up, focused on the star of God’s promise of a Messiah. His awed and respectful look sets the emotional stage for Mary and the Christ Child surrounded by animals—even they recognize the holiness of this event. 

Instead of an earthen floor, I used an indigenous Filipino textile design to reinforce the ethnic look of the painting. Like paintings, handwoven textiles can serve as artifacts of prayer, marking the many hours of thought, meditation and creativity the artist has spent making the “work” (In Latin, translated as liturgy).