Sex and recycled affection

Online sensation Tokwa Penaflorida breaks away from his dreamy watercolors to get  down and dirty.

MANILA, Philippines - Tokwa Penaflorida has been on our radar in the last few years for his dreamy watercolor work, holding our collective gaze (and our Tumblr accounts) hostage. Tonight, he brings sexy back in an exhibit of paintings on recycled paper bags, proving that you truly can find love in a hopeless place.

YOUNG STAR: To start with, why erotica and why on paper bags?

TOKWA PEñAFLORIDA: My work had always been sensual. Sex has always interested me, the primal power, how instinctive it is. But, back in college, my art was not subtle. It was sex in all-caps. I was after the shock value. My thesis was even, as my adviser called it, “A Kama-Sutra for kids.”

After graduating, I realized that the thing with shock value is, when all that you do is that and the main objective is to shock, it becomes novelty. I just want to revive that in these pieces but [through] the 25-year-old-me version; it’s clearly about sex but with a certain amount of obscurity so that audience can relate to it with their own personal experiences. It will be just hands, feet, and mouths. No peens, no vajay-jays, no gender.

And why paper bags?

Ever since the no-plastic policy was implemented here, the number of paper bags accumulated in our house and by chance, my family practices recycling. Since then, I’ve been doing my studies and sketches on these paper bags.

I was wondering what specific aspect of sexuality you’re looking to explore with this exhibit. 

The pre, during, and post of sex, the progression, how it begins, the climax and the end, how limbs and extremities contort and distort because of pain and pleasure, and the sensation when skin and skin is against each other. As the Spice Girls put it, “when two become one.”

 So, the name “Packages of Meat.” I was thinking about the title in sexual terms and all I could come up with was “package” as in male genitalia, the complete package. Am I on the right track?

“Packages of Meat,” as in wrapped pieces of flesh, a gift, an offering, or something you buy in delicatessens. I like how packages and meat can be sexual innuendos, so, yes, medyo. I was thinking of just entitling the show “paperbag erotica”, but I came across “packages of meat” when I was reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, vii – The Scar: “And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat. A package of meat in a wrapping of gold, mind you. A sort of gilded blood pudding.” It sounded perfect to me and it really carries the essence of the pieces I had in mind. 

 Okay, in the spirit of your exhibit, inappropriate question time: What’s on your ultimate sexy time playlist?

It depends on how you want your sexy time to be. Aggressive? Nine Inch Nails, and Led Zeppelin.  Gentle? Leonard Cohen, The XX, some mellow No Doubt, Amy Winehouse, Kyla la Grange. Absurd? “No Moon” by Blind Melon, “Santeria” by Sublime, “Miserable” by Lit. Apparently, I can’t do situational playlists.

Does size matter?

I should say “no” and “it’s in the performance,” but come on, at least sana nakikita ko.

Tits or ass?

Ass.

Shag, marry, kill: Solenn, Georgina, Anne?

Kill Solenn (love you). Shag Georgina. Marry Anne (you own me).

Shag, marry, kill: Enchong, Jake, Coco?

Kill Jake. Shag Enchong. Marry Coco. (Yami!)

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Tokwa Penaflorida will be spending Valentine’s Day in Today X Future (General Malvar Ave., Lungsod Quezon) “definitely not sober” for his show “Packages of Meat: Paperbag Erotica.” The show starts 8 p.m. Come by for the art. Stay for DJ sets by Lustbass, Major Chie, Samantha, and Loyola Hives. — Raymond Ang