Daughter of multi-awarded Philippine-based artists, Cesare and Jean Marie Syjuco, Beatrix moved to Manila at a very young age, where she spent years exposed to the volatile art scene of a harrowing third world country, quickly evolving to be a distinguished artist herself.
Between the years 2005 and 2020, Beatrix has continued to call attention to the subliminally rooted artforms of Modern Abstraction and Performance Art, mounting numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, involving large-scale paintings, installations, and riveting performance art pieces.

What are the usual themes in your work?

My work has always been anything but figurative. As an abstract painter and performance artist, I tend to tread a fine line between what is real and imagined, what is palpable and intuited. There is a visceral nature to everything I do, whether it be painting or losing myself in a trans-like state during a performance art piece. I value few things more than human emotion, and it does not matter to me so much that my work be perceived as conventionally beautiful as it does to have the viewer truly FEEL something when experiencing my work. The common themes behind my work can range from joy to torment, bliss to heartbreak, courage to fear, and resilience to pain. Many people like to paint the things they see. I much prefer to paint the things I feel. In this way, my abstract paintings are like pages from a diary. They encapsulate and contain stories of love, hope, struggle, and truth.

Tell us about your latest project/s or anything you are currently working on.

I have a career that spans a very wide base, from Asia through North America. It can be tricky pursuing a career in more places than one, but it is my belief that Art in its purest form, should never box itself into one country or region. At the moment, I am working on new paintings while also conceptualizing a performance art piece for KURBATOFF GALLERY in British Columbia. It is the Russian-owned gallery that represents me here and was just awarded "Gallery of the Year" by the prestigious Canadian Business Awards. We are launching an exhibit in March called MILESTONES, that will showcase celebratory artworks created by the gallery artists, and my performance will be headlining the opening date of this show. I have been fortunate enough to land a series of significant projects in Asia as well. At the turn of the year, I was contacted by a brand new (still being built) 5-star hotel in Manila to exclusively create over 300 paintings for its rooms, lobbies, villas, lounges, and public spaces. I have never been asked to create a body of works this big before and am both honored and excited for what's to come. I am also juggling several group shows between Manila, Vancouver, Seattle, and New York throughout the year. This will be no easy feat to tackle collectively, but I feel like thrive the most when put under pressure. The pressure aids in the nature of my works remaining raw and spontaneous, and I am never happiest than when I am head-spinningly manic!

How do you study or research for a project?

I don't believe I ever find myself studying or researching for any projects. My instincts are paramount when I paint and perform, so I often follow those rather than take a measured, academic approach. I believe that Art must stem predominantly from the heart, because it it does not, it runs the risk of losing all integrity. Without integrity, it then loses credibility. A viewer needs to feel heart, above all, when experiencing one's work. Believability is so important.

What are the processes involved in your art-making?

 There are very few steps involved in my art-making process, if any at all. I never enter my studio with an idea of what I aim to create or finish. I simply enter every day, tune in to my instincts, take a deep breath, and begin. Everything happens very much in real time. I am an extremely sensitive person, so I am constantly thinking, feeling, pondering, and contemplating. There is hardly ever a moment when I don't have thoughts or feelings just screaming to be transposed to a canvas. I suppose I am lucky in that sense because I can be assured of constant inspiration for what I do.

When working for an exhibition, how do you know which work to include?

Regardless of what project I am submitting art for, my rule of thumb is to never let go of the piece unless I am personally and wholeheartedly enamored with it. There have been times in the past where the demand for my work was excessive, and I found myself torn between allowing myself to let go of a piece for the sake of fulfilling that demand or near-breaking my back burning the candle from both ends just to get each piece to a point where I was completely in love with it. I chose the latter, of course, and that has never disappointed me. Nothing can be worse for an artist than to feel mechanical. Art should never be be half-hearted, and it certainly should never be contrived.

Name some of the artists who have influenced you in your practice.

It would be easy for me to say I have been deeply inspired by the likes of Mark Rothko, Franz Klein, Willem DeKooking, Jean Michelle Basquiat, Cy Twombly, and Jackson Pollock when it comes to my art, but I think that mostly, it is my parents who have inspired me to be the individual artist that I am. Growing up as the daughter of two globally renowned and revered artists, Art was something that was just literally all around me. We had art on the walls, ceilings, floors, in the form of paintings, sculptures, installations, images, literature. It was applied to every moment of our days and every aspect of our lives. I would be asked to submit a simple book report at school, and I would be most excited to work on its cardboard folder and transform it into a three-dimensional spectacle of visual art, because anything less would not have been acceptable. I used to sew my own clothes as a teen, because what could be readily purchased in stores never seemed to measure up to my desired forms of self-expression. Art, I believe, is not something we create. It is a force that exists all around us, and every artist is gifted for being more sensitive to it than others.

Among your works, which of them could be called your favorites?

I always tend to favor my works that just "throw themselves together", so to speak. I have been proud of pieces that took weeks to complete, but by far my favorite ones are the ones that are conceived in next to no time. Some days, I take a brush in hand and am amazed at how I could create something so beautiful and powerful in a matter of minutes. Those are the moments that have me convinced Art exists everywhere. It has little to do with talent or skill and more to do with being in tune with the universe and your inner self. As a concrete example, my large-scale piece called "FOR CESARE" (photo attached) is a 5 x 6 foot piece I created while thinking of my Dad. He had endured a very difficult year in terms of health last year, and he was prominent in my mind as I created that piece. It came together in less than ten minutes, each stoke landing effortlessly where it was meant to, and I found myself in a moment of awe, where I stepped back and said: "This is what Art should look and feel like".

What is your fondest childhood memory?

I tell people all the time that I couldn't have asked for a better childhood than the one my parents gifted me with. While other children would be excited by the thought of hitting the playground after school, I would be excited to accompany my parents to galleries, museums, alternative art spaces and the like, so I could witness them conceptualizing, installing, or mounting their exhibits. My Dad would always blare the coolest of music on the speakers of our family car and explain to us what made every track so worth being lost in, and even that (music appreciation) was something that expanded my artistic sensibilities. When I was a child, my Dad self-mailed thousands of postcards to himself and filled an entire gallery from floor to ceiling with them for a solo exhibition. My Mom rendered a performance, where she sheared all her hair off with a blunt pair of scissors, to the point where her scalp was bleeding onto the dress she wore. Other children might have found such things to be bizzare or unusual. I remember it all to be nothing short of glorious! There are really too many memories for me to enumerate, but I think it's safe to say, each one was filled with art, and each is considered priceless.