Silay-based artist Anika Marie Loquite overwhelms the viewer’s visual senses with color and means to do so. Deep within her bright strokes, whimsical themes, and childlike figures are depictions of lost moments that the artist is eager to relive.
Anika graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, majoring in Industrial Design from La Consolacion College - Bacolod, and soon after, ventured into graphic design. In 2014, she focused solely on art-making which eventually led to her joining duo and group exhibits in Bacolod, Cebu, and Manila.
In Quaderno: Yakap by Anika Loquite, the young artist embraces moments of affection and togetherness in full color through heartwarming, personal vignettes. She talks with Looking for Juan to explain more about her collection.
What inspires/motivates you to create?
My art is mainly dictated or triggered by a certain emotion, an encounter, an experience, a memory. It can be something fleeting or something overwhelming, something simple or grand, something good or sometimes something bad or sad that I come across.
Details of I Am Here (acrylic on canvas, 2022)
What does your art represent?
My art is personal. It represents me in a nutshell, in my simplicities and complexities while traversing this life. And I guess in between those, other people may find something that they resonate with as they too, may have felt or experienced something similar in their own journeys.
What does yakap mean to you?
Yakap is warmth. For me, it is a shared experience between two (or more) people that reaches far beyond the physical. It touches the soul. It transcends time. It becomes a beautiful piece of memory.
I Am Here (acyrlic on canvas, 2022)
What was the idea behind your yakap artworks? How did you come up with them?
The four pieces I made for this collection centered on family relationships. I hoped to depict the dynamics of an embrace among different pairings of family members. Hindi na ako lalayo. The easiest source of ideas would be my family and bits and pieces of life with them. Nag-isip ako ng masasaya at ilang medyo malulungkot na alaala. Pero sa pangkalahatan, masaya noong binalikan ko yung mga panahong iyon. Dahil sa pag-alala, parang buhay na buhay muli ang memorya ng aking pamilya.
Details of Missed Opportunity (acrylic on canvas, 2022)
Could you walk as through your yakap artworks?
I Am Here is a piece in honor of my siblings. But in general, this goes out to family and friends who—in all our triumphs and fumbles, with all our strengths and flaws—accepted us and continue to be present in our lives.
Meanwhile, Friday Nights depicts how parents and children should cherish time spent together because it’s not long before we grow up and our parents grow old. Ironically, I do not have any memory of being sandwiched between my parents, but I do remember when I was 5, on Friday nights, my siblings and I would gather in our parent’s room to claim our spots. It was chaotic but so much fun. It felt being tucked in bed by them, and we’d all go to sleep, cramped but happy together.
Friday Nights (acrylic on canvas, 2022)
Missed Opportunity is in memory of my father who passed before I could fully show him how much he is loved. It is a reminder the value of time and how fragile life is.
Pass It On shows that one of the strongest forms of love is that of a mother’s and the relationship between a mother and child is vital in the child’s development. When love is nurtured and passed on, we can hope and be excited about how beautiful and kinder the world is going to be.
Missed Opportunity (acrylic on canvas, 2022)
How can art be a source of yakap to others?
If an artwork brings out an emotion out of you, I think it has served its purpose. Because to feel is to be human. And if we allow ourselves to feel all types of feelings, isn't that a beautiful way to live?
Pass It On (acrylic on canvas, 2022)
Inspired by Anika Loquite’s art? Embrace Philippine art with Quaderno: Yakap by Anika Loquite, a set of four limited-edition notebooks featuring original artworks by Loquite, created for the creative you.
A part of the proceeds from Anika’s Quaderno: Yakap collection will go to book donations to children in disadvantaged communities in the Philippines in support of CANVAS' One Million Books for One Million Filipino Children Campaign.