Define Your Icon

Can Madonna ever fully express your faith?

That is, can any icon do so?

Being a nation with strong Catholic underpinnings, Philippine religion is a larger-than-life experience. Our culture is crowded and crossed over with symbols and statues of our faith, each bigger than the last. Artist Raymond Legaspi’s latest series “How Big Is Your Faith?” takes a look at the roles we have assigned these icons; and the role religion plays in our workaday world.

History tells us that in Rizal’s time, land value was dictated by proximity to the church, and then as now, many people sought to curry favor with men of faith, plying them with earthly delights to secure a parking spot in heaven.

Similarly, Raymond notes that there was a perceived relation between the icons a family owned (in size and number) and how fervent your faith was. If one family had a crucifix for each door and a carroza full of saints that would be lent to the parish, they might as well ride the said carriage to heaven.

On the flip side, some of his other paintings in this series feature icons that are also larger than life, but are seen as part of the furniture. For some of us, religion has become part of routine, an hour on Sunday is a foregone conclusion; the songs are mouthed along to; the rituals are what we do because they’re what our parents have taught us and are all we know. We take them as part of the landscape, but without them we’d be lost.

The bottom line is that icons only have as much meaning as we’re willing to assign them. Whether the symbols are inherited or our own, there is no denying the presence of religion has shaped our culture. And Legaspi’s latest series invites us to examine what that meaning is for each of us.

Text written by Therese Endriga