PAISAHE | March 4 - March 25, 2023 PAISAHE Demosthenes Campos March 4 - March 25, 2023 1/6 View Catalogue Video Press Release Abstracted Landscapes Demosthenes Campos continues to explore his multi-layered, highly-textured abstract idiom in his solo exhibition, Paisahe. The exhibition’s title is derived from the Spanish word for landscape, and Campos explores how landscapes—an enduring painting genre—may be translated into abstraction, and how the inner world of an individual may assume the contours of a landscape in this series of works. Throughout history, artists have been inspired by the natural world, and many have sought to capture the essence of landscape in their works. Abstracted landscape paintings have a long and rich tradition, from the Impressionists’ depictions of light and atmosphere to the modernists’ exploration of form and color. In works on canvas and paper, Campos explores how the “ground” (both an artistic and geological term) provides all that an artist needs in order to convey the varied, lush, and eventful surfaces of worlds both natural and man-made. Through a process of accretion, the artist lays down oil and acrylic pigments, evoking the infinite varieties of earth, plant life, and landscape topographies. Aside from working with the plasticity of paint, Campos incorporates a variety of materials into his works, including old canvas once used as wallpaper in an ancestral house, which imbues the pieces with a sense of history. Some of these works feature geometric elements, in acknowledgment of the canvas’ architectural past. Additionally, some of the works contain botanical elements (sourced from the same ancestral house), adding a further layer of natural complexity to the abstracted landscapes and highlighting the artist's ability to balance the organic and the geometric in his works. These plants are no longer recognizable in their original form but are already transmuted, present as deep impressions of color, particularly in the five by eight feet work—one of the largest paintings that Campos has accomplished in his career. The layers of texture and materials used in these works evoke a sense of history and memory, adding a deeper emotional resonance to the abstract landscapes. Through his use of materials and techniques, Campos creates a sense of depth and complexity in his works. These works are not simply representations of landscapes but rather interpretations of the emotional and psychological landscapes that the artist has experienced. Overall, Paisahe is a profoundly eye-opening exhibition that showcases the unique vision and artistic skill of Demosthenes Campos. By exploring landscape through abstraction and incorporating personal history and botanical elements into his works, Campos creates a body of work that is not just visually striking but also celebrates the staggering richness of the world we inhabit. - Carlomar Arcangel Daoana Demosthenes Campos Demosthenes Campos is a Filipino artist who graduated from the Technological University of the Philippines with a degree in Fine Arts, major in Advertising. He has participated in numerous group shows and solo exhibits in various galleries in the Philippines and is a recipient of awards from established institutions such as the Art Association of the Philippines’ Annual Art Competition in the Mixed Media Category, 2nd place at the Philippine Association of PrintMaking and a honorable mention in Mixed media category at GSIS National Art Competition Demosthenes Campos continues to explore his multi-layered, highly-textured abstract idiom in his solo exhibition, Paisahe. The exhibition’s title is derived from the Spanish word for landscape, and Campos explores how landscapes—an enduring painting genre—may be translated into abstraction, and how the inner world of an individual may assume the contours of a landscape in this series of works.

This is Not a Chair | September 6 - 27, 2025 This is Not a Chair Jowee Aguinaldo September 6 - 27, 2025 1/8 View Catalogue Video Press Release Don’t Take Your Seat In Jowee Aguinaldo’s first solo exhibition, the artist takes an ordinary piece of furniture, a chair, and turns it into a restless metaphor for the everyday struggles that shape our lives. This Is Not a Chair asks us to look closer at what we take for granted, to see how a familiar object can carry stories of power, absence, burden, and survival. Images of monobloc chairs, common in Filipino households, appear in varying iterations: stacked, carried, used as armor, boxed, and strewn with yellow police tape. Each depiction adds meaning, taking us deeper into this hardy object whose very material might outlast human lives. In Never Ending Trip to Jerusalem, the childhood game of musical chairs is reimagined as a grim cycle. The players run in circles, chasing seats that never quite belong to them. The image, in all its soft-brushed detail, hardens into a portrait of inequality. Figures run themselves dry to the point of exhaustion while systems keep the rewards out of reach. As the artist cuttingly states, “only when their hearts stop does the music end.” Other works ground these ideas more intimately. In Mahabag sa Hapag and Saan Ako Lulugar, chairs transform into tables and fragile shelters hand-carried restlessly into varying positions. They stand in for labor that feeds others but rarely sustains the worker, or for housing that demands endless adjustment without ever offering rest. Chair/Man is pure satire: a chair draped with clothes that sketch the outline of a leader, yet no actual body fills the seat. This is authority as costume, not service, with no tangible substance or hope for sustenance. The sharpness continues in BAHAla Kayo Dyan, aiming at current issues concerning anomalies in flood control projects. Floods rise not only as natural disasters but as symbols of corruption, drowning infrastructure, private property, and people alike. Citizens are left to fend for themselves while officials pocket funds, offering clownled spectacles instead of solutions. In Patas sa Gapas, the divide between landowners and farmers is laid bare. Side-by-side comparisons of one figure enjoying abundance and towering profits, and others enduring precarity, dangerously sharing the limited space and barely allowed to stand. And in Weight of Stillness, expression itself seems boxed in, showing how silence can be imposed even in a society full of noise. The smaller canvases of the This Is Not a Chair series distill these ideas into sharp fragments: exclusion disguised as inclusion, war cutting lives short, the weight of constraint on LGBTQ+ identities, and the quiet but forceful presence of absence itself. Aguinaldo’s oil paintings are carefully built through blending, glazing, and layering, but what makes them resonate is less about technique than urgency. The artist paints with the eye of an astute storyteller and the conviction of someone who knows these issues firsthand. In the end, this exhibition truly is not even about chairs at all. It is about who gets to sit, who is left standing, and who is never even invited to the table. Aguinaldo asks us not to look away but to face these questions head-on, and to recognize that the simplest forms around us often carry the heaviest truths. - Kaye O’Yek Jowee Anne Aguinaldo Her work addresses social issues, identity, and community through vivid figurative compositions. In 2023, she won the Grand Award in the Oil/Acrylic on Canvas category at the Metrobank Art & Design Excellence Awards for Puro Kahig, Walang Matuka, a piece that highlights the plight of Filipino farmers. More recently, she also won first place at Sining Filipina: Her Earth, Her Future for her painting Pinagtapi-tapi, which reflects sustainability and collective effort. Her works combine strong narrative, symbolism, and an urgent voice rooted in everyday experiences.

Across Structural Realities | Across Structural Realities Rene Bituin, Sarah Conanan, Rhex Dacaymat, Zuh Dai, Teo Esguerra, James Fowler, Hannah Nantes, Mark Nativo, David Ryan Viray 1/4 View Catalogue Video Press Release Traversing Realms In Across Structural Realities, recent works by Rene Bituin, Sarah Conanan, Rhex Dacaymat, Teo Esguerra, James Fowler, Hannah Nantes, Mark Nativo, David Ryan Viray and Zuh Dai cross concepts, visible spaces, and pressing concerns in this post-pandemic world. James Fowler's painting of a deteriorating concrete post serves as a reminder of the fragility of our constructed world. Rene Bituin's works use patterns from camouflage, rock formations, and human-propelled renderings of ever-spreading crystallizations juxtaposed against the organic lines of a tree trunk, in one of his pieces allowing natural matter and angular shapes flowing out to the open. Sarah Conanan's Mothering features a grown cat caught on canvas with a dead bird, seemingly confused whether to attack or nurture. In Start Them Young, she portrays a curious kitten playing with the dead bird, raising questions about the relationship between creatures and their awareness of mortality. Teo Esguerra's Low Frequency Noise Box features collaged images of crushed fabric compared to water, a beach, and a figure. Wave Sample, Reverb + Delay features another pieced-together collection of images, this time drier with its depiction of leaves and earth, a pathway, and a child looking out into the horizon. Both pieces are interspersed with pink lines and shapes, underscoring random beats visibly pulsating. David Ryan Viray's Left Handed Painting showcases objects that surround and represent the artist's studio life. In his bigger piece, The Right Handed Painter, a detailed anatomical rendition is overlapped with a mapping of creative flow, the artist’s blood tracing energy as it builds strength before being impressed on canvas. Mark Nativo's monochromatic scenes of figures outside home structures convey a sense of despair and uncertainty, reflecting the anxieties of the present and uncertain futures. Rhex Dacaymat's petrified tree branches in grayscale portray the beauty of nature frozen on canvas, a visual scale of white, gray, and black with shades from bright to dark and punctuated by a vibrant spurt of crimson. Zuh Dai creates a molded acrylic painting with comics and anime-inspired spliced images that bring pops of process colors, varying planar depths, and clearly delineated, zoomed-in imagery that plays with the fragmentation of the figurative to usher notions of the abstract. Hannah Nantes presents paintings of vintage plates in A Well-Curated Display and A Thin Veneer Of Mahogany, showcasing the artist's attachment to nostalgia and traditional design as she engages memory and tweaks it to compare and contrast with the more formal ornamentations of fine China mounted against a humble wooden setting. With structural realism as a pretext, we may view scientific theories that tell us only about forms and structures of the unobservable world, neglecting its nature. This selection of artists with their works work across worlds both seen and felt, collecting experiences and presenting them as tangible visions. They invite us to contemplate on the complexities of our existence, allowing us to reflect on our relationships with the natural and fabricated realities we find ourselves in. Kaye O’Yek

Still Standing Firm | February 10, 2024 - March 2, 2024 Still Standing Firm Paul John Cabanalan, Jason Delgado, Delmo, Noel Elicana, Orland Espinosa, Tyrone Dave Espinosa, Joebert Gayoma, Jirah Labanza, Roland Llarena February 10, 2024 - March 2, 2024 1/7 View Catalogue Video Press Release Still Standing Firm “And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. -Khalil Gibran, The Prophet Still Standing Firm marks SIGAHUM’s 4th group exhibit, paying homage to their creative roots and ongoing journey toward artistic maturity. This creative odyssey has led the members of the Iloilo-based artist group from shared local beginnings to diverse cosmopolitan platforms and individual life paths. Leveraging their background in architecture, the exhibit features an installation where stretched canvases and wooden panels serve as pillars, arranged back-to-back in the gallery space. These pillars, beyond their structural role, symbolize the creative, social, and motivational strength inherent in artist communities. Each pillar stands as a testament to the power of diversity fortifying the collective aesthetic. Feet and tree limbs interchangeably represent rootedness and the pursuit of growth. While sharing common symbols, each artist employs them to narrate a distinct trajectory: for Jason Delgado, feet symbolize the supple but firm inspiration derived from his new family; for Noel Elicana, feet become symbols of the reliable scaffolding that Faith has been in his journey; and for Tyrone Espinosa, intricately carved bird-like feet in Lawaan wood characterize the constant grappling for a moral footing to contextualize life’s trials. The fertile soil forming the foundation of a resilient forest links the works of PJ Cabanalan, Delmo, Orland Espinosa, and Jirah Labanza. For Cabanalan, Delmo, and Orland Espinosa, the forest is a magical haven filled with fantastical creatures tending to a primordial sacred way of living. Delmo imparts an ethereal glow to his painted works, hinting at an inner world where timeless resilience and constant peacefulness can be found. PJ Cabanalan and Orland Espinosa sustain their creativity through a playful approach to painting, tapping into the rich reservoir of their subconscious and discerning the unfolding stories within. Jirah Labanza sees the motherly nurture inherent in nature, which she lovingly depicts in her quaintly painted rendition of birds’ nests nestled in tree branches. Joebert Gayoma and Roland Llarena turn to innerscapes interpreted respectively through surrealist symbolism and minimalist abstract color fields to assert their unique voice on their ongoing search for identity. Despite the centralization of art's economic activity in the capital, these artists from the south of Manila choose to embody and narrate stories and vantages from their home province. They draw confidence from the mutual support within the collective, emphasizing the importance of roots and rootedness. Keeping their feet firmly planted reflects their deeply-held faith that the strength of their pillars depends on the depth of their foundation. While a pillar can stand alone, its true merit lies in how strongly it supports the other pillars of a structure. It is artists building each other up, conscious that they are the pillars holding their shared dreams—each one standing authentically while supporting another. Alee Garibay

Labas Paloob | November 8 - 29, 2025 Labas Paloob Renz Baluyot November 8 - 29, 2025 1/8 View Catalogue Video Press Release Renz Baluyot’s newest solo presentation is the culmination of his residencies outside the Philippines. The series of works in the exhibition reflects his underlying motivation to create outside familiar environments. These residencies entail rigorous work and demand a significant amount of preparation. Baluyot draws themes from recently concluded artist residencies in Virginia, New York, and Malaysia. 1 He takes this as an opportunity to experiment with materials and to pursue process-based production that will only be possible in a given space and time for art-making. In a set of drawings, he documents everyday scenes from these places, capturing singular moments of his surroundings. He employs a subtractive approach to his drawings, erasing darker shades of graphite to reveal subtle layers of light, evoking heightened emotions within seemingly isolated environments. The subtractive approach in Baluyot’s process is also echoed in his textile works. Using rust to create images and patterns on fabric, Baluyot adapts techniques involved in batik mark-making. He covers areas of the fabric with wax to resist the absorption of rust when dyeing. The fabric is then submerged in boiling water to melt the wax off and reveal the image beneath. The use of rust underscores a recurring theme he has long been exploring in his practice: urban decay and industrial degradation. This theme is present in his paintings of tarpaulin-covered objects, a series he started years ago. Unlike his first few paintings of the same subject, his new works depict the subject against a plain background, isolated and removed from their usual context. By concealing the object, he explores absence and presence, showing how meaning can emerge from what is revealed and what remains hidden. In this exhibition, Baluyot experiments not only with materials and processes, as hinted by the use of actual copper in his initial studies. His text-based pieces bring forth a more conceptual approach to the subject matter. Combining cut-out texts and drawings onto copper-tinted paper, his text-based compositions highlight the linguistic roots between Filipino and some Malay words such as “Lupa,” “Bendera,” “Tangis,” “Landasan” and “Mahal.” These words retained their original contexts and resisted the impact of colonial influence. His play on words injects humor while carrying socio-political undertones. Resistance is central to this particular—and likely significant—body of work by Baluyot, shaping both its concept and the process of his image-making. The exhibition posits the necessity of looking inward and journeying outward as important aspects of his artistic practice. Labas Paloob is Baluyot’s way of introspecting, which, in Baluyot’s own words, is possible through quietude and pause. 1 Renz Baluyot attended the following residencies in this year alone: Rimbun Dahan (Malaysia), Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency (New York, US), and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (Virginia, US). James Luigi Tana

Paniniwala | March 1 - 11, 2025 Paniniwala Manny Garibay March 1 - 11, 2025 1/14 View Catalogue Video Press Release PANINIWALA: Faith, Power, and the Struggle for Freedom What do we believe, and why do we believe in it? Paniniwala explores the evolution of faith as a cultural force, and how it has been shaped, institutionalized, and even weaponized throughout history. In this exhibition, Emmanuel Garibay dissects belief not as an abstract ideal but as a lived reality influenced by socio-political factors. His works challenge the ways by which faith has been used to impose identity and mold public consciousness. Belief, according to Garibay, is not always freely chosen—it is often conditioned. In Kumbinsi, faith is forced through rhetoric, authority, and ritual captured in the act of coercion. The Spanish friars of the colonial era framed conversion as salvation, Throughout Spanish colonization, friars convinced Filipinos that salvation required abandoning their indigenous gods. The Church’s approach was presented as a path to redemption, but in truth, it served to establish control. Over time, the colonized not only accepted the foreign religion but also internalized inferiority. If persuasion initiates, Kolonya depicts its consequences. The work primarily echoes how colonial rule defined Western civilization and Christianity as superior, conditioning an entire people into self-erasure. Through compulsory baptisms, renaming, and education, faith became an instrument of submission that (mis)aligned Filipinos with foreign ideals at the cost of their native identity. Today, traces of Kolonya still persist in the worship of European and American cultures over our own. The narrative of domination concludes in Dakip, which means captivity. A stark image of a white man gripping the severed head of a brown man, while holding a book with a red apple on its cover. The apple, a symbol of both knowledge and temptation, underscores how American colonial education was designed not to empower but to separate Filipinos from their indigenous roots. By capturing minds, colonizers did not just control the land but also our stories, and hence, our being and belonging. The process of indoctrination reaches its peak in Doksolohiya, which exposes belief as a spectacle that is no longer about spirituality, but about obedience and institutional preservation. The Trinity meant to embody divine power is reduced to a dysfunctional hierarchy: the Father sits in silence, the Son surveils rather than saves, and the Holy Spirit is burdened by the weight of absurd authority. The cathedral, once a place of worship, is now a grotesque circus where faith is manipulated for political interest and economic gain. Santa Claus, transformed into an arms dealer, relates to the commercialization and militarizationm of religion, revealing how institutions co-opt belief. Yet even in persuasion, domination, conditioning and captivity, resistance is possible. In Tawid belief shifts from submission to action, depicting its reclamation as a force of liberation. The work portrays a lone protester standing on a bridge leading to Malacañang, holding a placard partially revealing “IBAGSAK” or overthrow. The image echoes a recent revolution, where faith in justice ignited a movement that toppled an oppressive dictatorship. This indicates faith in justice and the power of resistance as sites to overcome the shackles of control – pushing forth the nature and essence of history. Here, it is clear that belief alone is not enough and it must be paired with the struggle for truth, often initiated by the lone voices willing to take a stand and become the embodiment of choice in between oppression and freedom. At its core, Paniniwala questions what we choose to revere and who benefits from that reverence. As much as it dramatizes the ironies, distortions and fragmentations of our current systems of belief, it also departs from what bounds us and to step into the possibilities of the unbound. -BG Manny Garibay Emmanuel Garibay, was born in Kidapawan, North Cotabato, Philippines in 1962. He is known as much for his expressionist figurative style as for the content of many of his works, which often express a keen social and political consciousness. He completed his Fine Arts degree at the University of the Philippines in 1989 and was part of the art group called Artista ng Bayan (People’s Artists). After a stint as an education officer in a cultural division at the Malacañang Palace, he commenced work as a full time artist in 1990 and began his studies at the Union Theological Seminary in 1992 completing a Master of Divinity in 1995. A prolific and internationally established painter, his work as organizer is an often overlooked but constant passion even when he was still studying at the University of the Philippines. He has headed various art and cultural organizations ever since, spearheading art projects with advocacies such as Tutok Karapatan (artists for human rights, 2006-2008), Kritikal Katoliko (art festival tackling Religion’s impact on Philippine society, Quezon City, 2008), Project Bakawan (campus-wide Environmental Arts Festival, UP Diliman, 2013-2015), and the Paghilom Arts Festival 1-3 (Regional Arts Festival, Cavite, 2016-2020) among others. He is currently chairman of Artletics, a non-stock, non-profit organization that empowers young artists to transform communities through art education. Garibay believes that art can be an effective medium for awakening consciousness. He believes an awakened consciousness through art can help people pull themselves out of their despondency and feeling of powerlessness to bring about empowered change.

Threading Through Time | May 6-27, 2023 Threading Through Time Winna Go May 6-27, 2023 DSC02983.JPG DSC02985.JPG DSC02426.JPG DSC02983.JPG 1/8 View Catalogue Video Press Release Threading Through Time In her first solo exhibition, Threading Through Time, Winna Go contemplates how the locus of identity is shaped by the variables of the past and the present—at times harmonious and conflicting—especially at this juncture of history in which the world is idealized as a global community. The artist looks back at her Chinese ancestry and its powerful pull on her imagination and private life, expressed through an astounding suite of large-scale works featuring traditional Chinese robes as well as an installation of soft sculptures and archival materials. In her paintings, Go carefully renders the iconography of some of the most enduring symbols of Middle Earth: from the exquisite chrysanthemums to the mythical dragon to the chimerical creature, Qilin. The attention to detail is exact, even obsessive: a desire for figurative fidelity, with no distortion to how these symbols appear and what they represent. However, at the bottom of the robes, starting at the hem, the cloth starts to unravel and deteriorate. What initially seem to be museum-worthy robes are presented to be in a state of slow ruin, no longer the untarnished silk of their former lives. For Go, such is the state of affairs in contemporary times, in which heterogeneity appears to be the desired outcome.. Not one culture is autonomous and monolithic; influences flow in and out of the great channels of commerce and the social media; we are, all of us, are signifiers of multiple and varied ideological strands. Even the symbolism of the images Go has depicted on her robes has mutated through centuries. The mighty dragon, for instance, revered for its awesome and powerful import is now casually seen as an auspicious symbol, a bringer of good luck. Fixity is fallacy. This feeling of deterioration is extended and made tactile by the soft sculpture that occupies a corner of the gallery: a warren of meticulously cut pieces of paper. To enter this shifting environment–doubled by mirrors and shadows–is to inhabit a space of introspection in which the familiar forms and shapes of self may be re-discovered. In conjunction with this work is Go’s collection of archival materials, gathered when she was in Taiwan finishing her Master’s degree at the height of the Covid pandemic. It is her own way of examining the ties that bind her to her heritage, the signifiers that constitute her inheritance as well as her destiny. Threading Through Time, the solo showcase of Winna Go, is the artist’s tender attempt to reclaim the precious bits and pieces of self that, in the absence of conscious effort to preserve, may erode and become obsolete. What the artist threads through time are the delicate, luminous strands that connect her all the way to her ancestors who braved the waters and called these islands home. Stitched into their resolve were their many stories and symbols of an enduring civilization, which these works at once express and extol: emblems of identity that can be worn with pride and dignity, like the robe of an emperor. Carlomar Arcangel Daoana Winna Go Winna Go is an award-winning artist who embraces the richness of her hybrid culture, and identity in the Chinese-Filipino context. She takes inspiration from the archived colonial history and contemporary issues of the Philippines and Southeast Asia, and the richness of the Sinophone world. In 2018, she became a regional winner of the Philippine Art Awards and placed as a finalist in multiple competitions, including the Metrobank Art and Design Excellence Competition, the Shell National Student Art Competition, and the LRT Art Competition. Her works have since been featured in exhibits across Taiwan and the Philippines.

Debosyon | August 5, 2023 Debosyon Lymuel Bautista August 5, 2023 DSC06103.JPG DSC06103.JPG 1/6 View Catalogue Video Press Release Debosyon For his solo exhibition, Debosyon, Lymuel Bautista presents a narrative told through a unique approach to the pictorial surface, skillfully transforming the canvas into a representation of corrugated iron roofs. Through his adept use of deep reds and browns, reminiscent of rusted iron, Bautista brings attention to the precarious conditions of marginalized communities—which constitute the majority of the country’s population—as well as the struggles they face daily. For this show, the artist departs from his usual socio-realistic subject matter, as epitomized by his work “Haunting Wail of Chaos,” the Grand Awardee in the Watermedia on Paper category of the Metrobank Art and Design Excellence in 2021—a visual fable depicting the intersection of the pandemic’s challenges with societal issues. This time, the artist’s objective is aimed at the concept of “devotion,” with a particular emphasis on devotion to family. Bautista draws inspiration from his own mother, who exemplifies unwavering dedication in raising her children single-handedly, a tribute that reflects the strength and sacrifices of countless mothers in similar circumstances. The idea of “devotion” takes on another dimension in the exhibition as it intersects with religious iconography. For instance, instead of bearing a cross, men carry the impossible weight of a beam or a post, meant to signify the difficulty of building a home. Spent matchsticks are depicted as instruments of flagellation, as if to underscore how seemingly volatile are the sacrifices of the poor. This notion of penance becomes a thought-provoking aspect of the show, suggesting that sometimes devotion requires individuals to sacrifice their own lives for a greater purpose, in this case, the creation a domestic space as a form of refuge. The artist also perceives this show as his own form of refuge from the heavy, hard-hitting themes that he has pursued in his body of work thus far. “This show offers a respite from my past works that are political,” the artist said in the vernacular. “My attack on this show is personal as opposed to my previous works. Soon, I’ll be back to the persistent context of my pieces, but this time, I have chosen to enter the sanctuary of home to recharge.” With Debosyon, Lymuel Bautista masterfully reveals the scope of his artistic prowess while delving into how the personal, the social, and the spiritual intersect especially in Philippine reality. Through his innovative process of figuration and exploration of diverse themes, Bautista’s work showcases a promising trajectory in the realm of contemporary art. As a young and visionary artist, he is leaving an indelible mark on the art world with evocative and powerful creations that are reflective of self and society. Carlomar Arcangel Daoana

Basyo | August 10 - September 7, 2024 Basyo Clark Manalo August 10 - September 7, 2024 1/4 View Catalogue Video Press Release Seeing Fullness in Empty Vessels Clark Sigua Manalo’s latest solo exhibition, BASYÓ, delves anew into the world of fisherfolk by exploring the objects they use daily and their symbolic weight. Working close to the Navotas fish port where his studio is located, the artist captures the essence of adaptability, utility, and the cyclical nature of life through humble plastic and styrofoam containers that he fills with images of the fishermen he encounters, their tools, and what they catch. They are then splintered and split with Manalo's painstakingly detailed painting technique and well-planned mappings of vivid colors, with cleverly placed glitches recurring as in the artist's past exhibitions. BASYÓ tells the story of these lightweight containers and the people who use them, who find such junked treasures precious in their everyday endeavors. Though recycled, they are treated with care to last longer, and they are usually found stacked neatly after long nights of labor to signify the completion of the day's work. Manalo observes their durability, noting how they withstand daily use until they finally break, mirroring the relentless labor of Filipinos who work tirelessly in all conditions. The artist also portrays their bodies occupying the empty containers in full armor against the elements–rain ponchos, improvised diving masks, rubber boots, and life vests with comfortable sandos and shorts–along with the tools of their trade: fishnets, bobbers, oars, coils of rope, kerosene- and beer bottle- lanterns, and their unwavering resolve to make an honest living from the sea, uncaring of the dredges, water lily fronds, loose branches, and other marine debris they encounter. "Hinahatak, binubuhat, ihinahagis, pinagpapasa-pasahan (pulled, carried, thrown, and passed around)"; Manalo explains of the BASYÓ, highlighting how they serve as a metaphor for the daily grind of the common worker, who exerts physical strength intensively just to survive, while those in privileged positions keep nonchalant airs yet reap greater rewards. Despite their hard work, the containers—and by extension, the workers—who play a crucial role in supplying our food deserve attention and better treatment. The artist emphasizes that BASYÓ has a different utility, especially in the fishing industry, from the start of work until its completion. He also points out that people often overlook the potential uses of an empty styrofoam box once it is discarded, especially as padding or protective molds for electronics. However, some see its value and find ways to recycle it—using it as a flotation device during floods or a storage container for important items, essential in a country facing the threat of climate change whose parts are increasingly found now under water. This use of the styrofoam box then reflects a broader, metaphoric idea: whether something is deemed worthless or valuable is often a matter of perspective and how it is used. Tragically, when these containers are no longer useful, they often end up polluting the environment, a poignant reminder of the environmental impact of discarded items. Manalo’s work prompts us to reconsider our perceptions and lend more importance not only to the empty containers where ice can be added to protect and preserve seafood to attain perfect freshness, it is also a call to safeguard the stewards of our waters, conserve the limited resources they find livelihood in, and learn from their inventiveness as they find new uses for what we deem old. -Kaye O’Yek

Childish | July 1-29, 2023 Childish Macj Turla July 1-29, 2023 1/9 View Catalogue Video Press Release The Foulies Of You In Childish, Macj Turla's third solo exhibition, the artist delves into the complex themes of escapism, the fear of growing up, and the weight of taking responsibility. Through a collection of freshly produced wide-eyed paintings framed by wood textures or hand-wrought, black-painted epoxy clay, Turla invites us to explore the nuances of human emotions and behavior, shedding light on the struggles and conflicts that lie beneath the surface of our daily lives and familiar characters in our surroundings that dwell on denial. Hide and Giggle presents a figure seeking cover behind a gray wall, addressing the childlike desire to escape from reality and evade the challenges that come with maturity. The piece serves as a reminder of the allure of a carefree existence, while his hidden playmates, chasers, and competitors personify the responsibilities and expectations that we often try to hide from. Inhaling Humor smokes out the allure of chemical substances as a means of altering one's perception of reality, prompting us to reflect on the human tendency to seek temporary relief from the pressures of adulthood, unmindful of the costs and long-term consequences. In this piece, the artist seemingly urges us to confront our vulnerabilities and question the paths we choose to escape from the struggles of growing up. Emotion Tag-a-Tag, a series of four pieces, prompts us to use the appropriate facial expression for each emotion as Turla delves into the concept of creating the various masks we wear to navigate social interactions and personal struggles. Each painting portrays what appears to be a drawing on paper, replete with the illusion of folds and crinkles, that people put in front of their actual faces to project an image, gain acceptance, or even survive in a world that demands a game face. In a way, the artist challenges us to question the authenticity of our emotions and invites us to embrace vulnerability and honesty. Keeping in mind Turla’s creative journey and past experiences in his relatively young life, we have seen his previous solo exhibitions reflect specific memories of tragedy and consequence; Childish veers away from the burnt parts, evocative line-heavy multilayered images, and chaotic compositions of his past works. His imagery now may appear simpler and less cluttered, but it does not lighten meaning-making in any way. It is an open invitation to look beyond the surface level and ponder what each piece actually says—what appears playful may not be all it seems, as we often get distracted by our judgment of what adults are supposed to be. More sinister forces might be at hand, or perhaps it is the dogged resistance to actively seeking solutions instead of immersing one in self-sabotaging abysmal situations; indeed, the vices quirkily portrayed in his works only result in foul confrontations with life’s follies, and we can always do better. Imponderous, mischievous, and lingering on naivete, the copious use of concrete colors reminds one of the dappled streets of youth, scratched with stone to draw whatever a child sees. Only now have clouds turned into smoke and trees into beer bottles. Innocent eyes droop heavy with worry. Everyone eventually grows old and gray, so maybe a little childishness should be OK? Kaye O'Yek

Good Morning | November 9 - 30, 2024 Good Morning Jonathan Joven November 9 - 30, 2024 1/10 View Catalogue Video Press Release Good Vibes, Great Lives Jonathan Joven captures the unbreakable spirit of the Filipino working class through a deeply personal lens in Good Morning, his exhibition of recent works. Inspired by his own father, Tay Jun’s tireless hustle across countless jobs—from porter to stevedore to pedicab driver, street food vendor, electrician, carpenter, and all-around handyman—Joven creates an homage to the everyday heroes of Manila, those who labor quietly, often unseen, in the gritty heart of the city. Here, the humble Good Morning towel stained with various shades of sweat and grime becomes a vibrant emblem of resilience, sacrifice, and survival. Joven’s father, like many in Tondo, Manila, wore this towel day after day as he took on whatever work he could find to support his family. A familiar sight among workers, the Good Morning towel is not just a piece of cloth; it’s a witness to the blood, sweat, and tears that fuel the city’s pulse. Each painted towel in Joven’s exhibit serves as a vivid reminder of these sacrifices, painted in shades of crimson to champion the enduring strength and courage of the Filipino worker. The red in his pieces doesn’t merely echo the text printed on it, it speaks to the lifeblood of the common laborer, echoing a gritty determination woven into the city’s landscape. The paintings go beyond just his father’s story, representing countless men and women who keep the locality moving. Joven also includes his acrylic, ink, spray paint, and oil on repurposed tracing paper on canvas paintings, Usad, to tell a story of transition and progress, staging a face-off between a traditional calesa and the more modern jeepney with a sprayed-on ghost of a bicycle refereeing in between. This collision of the old and new captures the city’s continual evolution, as traditions are both preserved and challenged by the forces of modernization. Sigasig, one of the centerpiece works, captures the frenzied energy of Divisoria, the famous marketplace where goods, people, and dreams all collide. Nearby is Tatag, a pedicab transformed with a makeshift tarp. Cast-off advertising is repurposed as shelter, a symbol of ingenuity in the face of scarcity. Joven’s depiction of such adaptations shows the street smarts required to survive everyday life with dignity and grace, and where the city’s workers navigate an ever-shifting economy with creativity and resolve. Through Good Morning, Joven holds up a mirror to the city, honoring those hard workers who keep it alive, fueled by the strength of individuals like his father and the collective spirit of countless others. It’s a stirring, tactile tribute to resilience and a reminder that the heart of a place beats in the hands of its people. Kaye O’Yek Jonathan Joven

Plastics and Colors of Youth | April 1 - 29, 2023 Plastics and Colors of Youth Fernando Sena April 1 - 29, 2023 1/4 View Catalogue Video Press Release Fernando Sena, considered as one of the masters of the still life genre, revisits his toy series in his solo showcase, Plastic and Colors of Youth, for Art Cube. Showing no loss of figurative skill and vitality, Sena once again depicts the joyous tumble of toys and their parts, all commingling together in their varied shapes and hues, so much so that no single piece asserts dominance. The viewer, regardless of where they look at the canvas, is treated to an eye-catching pop of color and shine, with the toys’ harmonious configurations being at once accidental (their arrangement in a box) and intentional (as the artist has devoted his attention and chosen to paint them). When Sena began this series two decades ago, it was meant to celebrate his bond with his then-young sons who showed encouraging inclination toward art. The artist raised them single-handedly and made ways to compensate for the loss of their mother, such as playing with them over the toys that Sena so meticulously painted. With his sons all grown up, these recent works take on a nostalgic veneer and a bittersweet tone as they mark the memories of togetherness that the father and the sons shared—a testament to the enduring nature of parental love. To a great extent, these works also mark a time in which children were encouraged to use mechanical toys to help them develop essential cognitive, motor, and social skills. Toys were not just objects of play and entertainment, but powerful tools in shaping psychological growth and development. With more and more children playing with tablets and phones instead of handheld objects, Sena’s paintings serve as a reminder that tangible, physical toys are still a necessity in childhood, as they encourage the use of hands and the imagination, establishing a child’s direct relationship with the world around them, which no digital plaything can replace. What is compelling in this suite of works is how Sena renders these toys descriptively, as if the viewer could easily pluck a piece out from any of the clusters. Just like in the early versions of this series, the artist has employed the top-view perspective to render the richness and diversity of the toys, without neglecting the layering and the sense of depth that makes these paintings so credible. As models of the still life, they testify to the genre’s infinite possibilities, of how ordinary objects achieve an extraordinary quality in the hands of a master such as Sena. Plastic and Colors of Youth is a beautiful and heartfelt exhibition that celebrates the enduring nature of parental love and affirms the centrality of Fernando Sena’s place in Philippine visual arts. Carlomar Arcangel Daoana Fernando Sena is known as the Father of the Philippine Art Workshop, sharing his knowledge and talent with the less fortunate, he was born in Tondo Manila to a family of humble means. At a young age, he became aware of the social conditions in his community. Sena started his career by attending a free summer art workshop conducted by the Children’s Museum and Library Inc. he was given a painting scholarship to the School of Music and Fine Arts of the University of the East where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Painting in 1971. After finishing college, Sena started volunteering and conducting free workshops for indigents, orphans, deaf and mute, cancer patients, and children with disorders. He is adept in using different mediums and can shift from one style to another, from being a cubist-pointillist to a realist-impressionist. Sena is recognized for his exquisite still lifes such as his trademark pandesal and toys but also tackles a whole range of subjects, such as landscapes, portraits, religious icons, and everyday people.