Tight Hold

Tight Hold brings together, for the first time, the artistic visions of iSko Andrade and RC Caringal in a two-person exhibition that reflects on the many bonds that shape our lives: within families, relationships, and communities. The title, departing from the familiar phrase “hold tight,” suggests that the connection already exists, sure and unshakable, and what remains is to recognize and confront its presence.

Though united by theme, the artists move in different directions. Caringal turns her gaze to the human body, isolating the hands and their gestures. In her works, hands become a language in themselves: reaching out to save, grasping to secure, binding to keep close, or embracing in tenderness. Rendered with dense chiaroscuro and a photographic clarity, her canvases seem caught in a sudden flash of light, the moment
suspended, the gesture preserved.

Andrade, on the other hand, works through metaphoric fabrics that wrap and conceal, bound by ropes that suggest the fragile and complex nature of attachment. The ropes protect what lies within, knotting connections into place, but also carry the possibility of fraying, loosening, or entangling. His textured surfaces speak of what is kept hidden and the delicate tension that holds relationships together.

In their collaborative piece “Unyielding Gaze,” these two approaches converge. Andrade’s luminous red fabric finds counterpoint in Caringal’s intimate handling of the body with the partial reveal of an eye, brow, and strands of hair. The work hovers between concealment and revelation, raising the question of how much of ourselves can be known, or whether recognition is always mediated through the gaze of another.

Taken together, Tight Hold is not simply a meeting of two artists but a weaving of visions. It considers what steadies us against the forces that would tear us apart, and how intimacy—whether through touch or through the act of looking—secures our place in the world.