BANWA Jonathan Madeja May 29 - June 19, 2021 View Catalogue The Painter in the Town by the Sea Self-taught artists, even in this day and age in which the creative path (paved by fine art schools, competitions, and exhibitions) is more or less set, are not unheard-of, but Jonathan Madeja is different. Born in Alad Island in the Province of Romblon, his destiny seemed to belong to the sea, just like his family composed mostly of fishermen. While he was already conversant in drawing and painting early on (his illustrations rendered with a ballpoint pen were immediately eye-catching), he took on odd jobs in construction and in electrical appliance sales to make ends meet. But the invitation of art was much louder than the call of the sea, and Madeja, after having participated in various group exhibitions and art residencies, finally comes to his own in his first solo exhibition, Banwa. From the Romblomanon word that translates into “town,” the show sets the stage for what the artist imagines as a continuing narrative of his life by the sea, redolent with his observations on the common folk, surroundings, and events that never reach the mainland. In this suite of paintings, the predominant hue is blue, the color of watery depths and the night sky with the rise of a full moon, under which the fishermen cast their nets, hopeful for an abundant harvest. Whether depicted as an enveloping element or merely suggested by a series of waves, the sea is omnipresent, governing the lives of people whom Madeja has devotionally painted with care. They are actual inhabitants of the island, looking through naked eyes or through a pair of goggles used in order to withstand long, breathless dives into the sea. While a few of the portraits appear straightforward, most of them contain surreal undertones, such as the cup held by a male figure (who resembles the artist) studded with thorns or a jester’s floating head through which a malevolent creature may be glimpsed. One dreamy painting shows a figure submerged under water and by the prow of an outrigger, aswarm with bird houses and eyes. It is a disconcerting underwater scene, which recalls the myths and legends connected to the moving mystery of the sea. Another work, which doesn’t have a human figure, may still be read as a portrait: the long-sleeved shirt hanging by a fish hook and signifying its wearer who has found temporary respite from the grueling labor of fishing. For the artist, Banwa is microcosm of what’s happening in the Philippines. Majority of the working class are involved in agriculture and fishing, though they are underrepresented in art, the media, and in matters of government and policy. What the artist hopes to achieve is to shine a light on people like those he knew and interacted with from day-to-day in his island life, fully aware of their dreams, hopes, and desires. “What I also want to convey,” says the artist in the vernacular, “is that life by the sea is never easy and that there are still many stories behind it that most of us still don’t know.” Madeja vows to tell these stories, each exhibit like a chapter in a book, beginning with Banwa. -Carlomar Arcangel Daoan Jonathan Madeja Jonathan Madeja is a self-taught artist known for his meticulous illustrations of people and still lifes drawn with a ballpoint pen. Madeja hails from a family of fishermen in Alad Island, Romblon. After graduating, he took on odd jobs from construction to selling electrical appliances. These experiences gave him a deep understanding of the working class who have become the frequent subjects of his canvases. Drawing made him feel alive and he was able to go through different challenging periods in his life because of his interest in art. For his first solo show entitled “Banwa” (Town) he created this as a sequel of his graduate show during his residency last year called “Baktas” (Walk). Growing up on an island in Romblon, his everyday transit of crossing the sea to get to the town is where he grabs inspiration for his works. One of his aspirations is to create a sense of joy and inspiration in his audience. He hopes that his pieces can also be seen and appreciated by art collectors and most importantly, the people from his hometown. Throughout his artistic practice, Madeja garnered recognitions from different art competitions in the country. He was a semifinalist for MADE 2017 and he secured a spot in the top 20 finalists for Manila Bulletin Sketch Fest for 2 consecutive years. Ever since he has taken on his art practice as a full-time profession, he has become a prolific artist, has exhibited his works often, and has succeeded to become a finalist in many art competitions in the country.

SQUARE METERS Jonathan Joven February 27 - March 20, 2021 A House of One’s Own Owning a house may be the most common dream of many Filipinos—and probably the most elusive. A look at Metro Manila will reveal pockets and swathes of informal settlement proliferating despite the measures that seek to control them. Demolition, relocation, and balik-probinsya program are just some of the interventions employed to curb what many people consider as urban blight. The root cause of squatting, which is poverty, is harder to address, hence the preference for band-aid solutions that invariably don’t last. Heartbreaking it may be to assume, the problem of homelessness will continue to persist. This social phenomenonon, addressed differently by the administrations that have come to pass, is seen through a much intimate and personal lens in the exhibit, Square Meters, by Jonathan Joven. The artist has the authority to speak about this matter. After all, he and his family once lived in Smokey Mountain in Tondo, Manila—the quintessential picture of informal settlement—battling the constant anxiety of being evicted from their makeshift home, with only the slimmest of hope of ever calling a house their own. On architectural blueprints repurposed (or, as the artist calls it, “upcycled”) as ground for his paintings, Joven depicts the aspirations of someone wanting to own a home despite, or because of, the dire conditions that he faces. “Frontage,” for instance, depicts the sculptures and figures that someone has dreamed of installing in front of their house, to convey their faith, religiosity, or simply their sense of whimsy. Greek columns, Madonna and Child, and even The Hulk are arrayed alongside each other, their function as decoration waiting in-the-wing for the homeowner who finds beauty and purpose on them. For the work, “Occupants,” it is the carved wooden furniture that seduce the attention of a potential homeowner as they convey status symbol and the seemingly impeccable taste of anyone who has the sense—and purchasing power—to display them. A much grittier take on the fevered desire of ownership is evoked by the work, “Adjacent.” It is a painting of a cart, covered with all sorts of sheets, carefully applied on top of the structure to protect whoever inhabits it from the punishing heat and rain. A pail and a water jug are seen hanging onto its sides to carry the most basic of provisions. Despite its patched-up condition and how it can easily be confiscated or destroyed by people in authority, the cart signifies someone’s wish to have and control their own domain, using whatever available material to construct something that resembles shelter. In a painting titled, “Condominium,” Joven depicts the relocation site of those whose houses were demolished in Smokey Mountain. Called Katuparan Condominium, as if to emphasize how the dream of owning a house has finally been “fulfilled,” the structure is composed of four floors and with an accompanying rooftop. Because of the continuing poverty and expansion of families of those living there, the condominium has become rundown through time, becoming another eyesore and an informal settlement, which necessitates the transfer of the inhabitants to another location. The painting underscores the cycle of poverty that seems inescapable to many. Square Meters is Joven’s way of looking back into his former home and how it has shaped him to become the person—and inevitably, the artist—that he is. His observations about the life in the slums allow the viewer to have a glimpse of the desires and dreams of those society seems to have forgotten, as they keep body and soul together under a roof that leaks and reveals a portion of a sky. -Carlomar Arcangel Daoana VIEW THE EXHIBITION CATALOG

OTHER PEOPLE JULIUS REDILLAS 25 July 2020 Other People Julius Redillas 25 July — 15 August Ribbons of Flesh, Arbitrary Crowns The art of portraiture has long traced its roots to nobility (particularly the monarchy and the Church), for what demographic would be able to commission an artist to paint their likeness than the prosperous elite? Hence, many of the portraits from the Renaissance Period onwards were people in power who, in fact, saw that being painted was a way to dramatize that power. Most of the time strictly formal and unsmiling, swaddled in precious materials such as silk, fur, and gold and bearing the attributes of their profession and place in society, they were figures of beauty and majesty, beaming from their privileged perch in art, staring god-like at the mortal viewer. In his series of works, Other People, Julius Claveria Redillas references this type of portraiture centering around people of prestige. Rather than painting them in stark verisimilitude, the artist represents these figures as clumps of ribbons of flesh, peering through malevolent eyes, set against a single-color background. Their clothes, that would have mirrored their importance, are reduced to floating silhouettes of white, which intensely frame the monstrous face. Despite Redillas’ violent distortion of their image, these figures—some dead, some alive—are remarkably identifiable. It is the subversion of their iconic stature that this exhibition exemplifies, their well-curated fame. Now, they are no longer the perfumed, prestigious versions of themselves but their horrifying counterparts, generating not awe but disgust. What makes them contemptible is the power that they have sought to naturalize as pre-ordained and good is exposed as an instrument of abuse and subjugation. Their self-mythologized grandeur is false. The crown that sits on their heads is paper-thin and holds no authority. (Coincidentally, the crown as a symbol has gained a more sinister association lately: the virus that has caused the pandemic is called the novel coronavirus, because its spikes resemble the structure of a crown.) In this age of selfies, social media, and self-promotion, Other People exposes the falsity of self-representation. Everything is surface and spectacle. The reverence we accord people of seeming importance is a result of the manufacture of the image and not some God-given beneficence. (Odious personalities, such as politicians who get photographed holding babies, know this only too well.) Rather than affirming our shared humanity, the image distances the figure from the rest of us: they belong to an inaccessible sphere. By painting these figures as masses of exposed flesh, Redillas evaporates away their mystique and glamour and presents the sordidness of their exclusivity, privilege, and illusory power, which, unfortunately, have caused and are still causing real suffering in the world. “Other people” are just people like us, only with the audacity to set on their heads puny, arbitrary crowns. -Carlomar Arcangel Daoana VIEW THE EXHIBITION CATALOG

HEROINE Kobusher August 21 - September 11, 2021 View Catalogue Video Kobusher, an artist born in 1972, is a graduate of Fine Arts with a major in Painting at the University of the Philippines. His first love was painting but most of his career was spent in the advertising industry. He considers himself a late bloomer in the Manila art scene. He worked as a creative director in one of the Philippines' top agencies and felt that everything he has ever done for his career was supportive of another person’s business or growth. Today, he is now dedicated to focus on his own path. He looks at his deep dive into art as his new budding career. He is known for his contemporary style and the use of deconstructed cartoon icons. He is keen on putting an exciting, fresh twist to iconic cartoon characters and he is obsessed with clean lines and colors. Kobusher’s everyday mindset is “Life is short, don’t suck”, for him, his art process is somewhat boring. He gets up from bed and starts working while managing to spare some time for his personal life to keep him sane and grounded. Kobusher used most of his favorite female cartoon characters, that most of us loved during our childhood. HEROINE is a way for him to pay homage to the women that touched and changed our lives. He is inspired by the same women that are close to our hearts; our mothers, sisters, the one beside you right now, the femme fatale, the vamp, the one that got away, the cool chick, the plain janes, man-eaters, divas, and queens among many others.

Rueda | April 6 - 27, 2024 Rueda Mark Laza April 6 - 27, 2024 DSC06210.JPG DSC06230.JPG DSC06208.JPG DSC06210.JPG 1/6 View Catalogue Video Press Release Rueda Ayon sa eksibisyon ni Mark Laza Paikutin ang ruleta Na nakatunghay ang mata sa iyo At ituturo ang mga posibilidad Ng uniberso. Tatlong tanong Ang magdidistrongka Ng pinto ng kamalayan: Sino, Alin, Paano, Ngayong gulong Ng pagtatansya ang pipili, Saang mesa isusugal Ang kapalaran? Dito ka manahan Sa silid ng pag-iisip At banggitin: Ang totoong orakulo ay ako. Kung saan ipipihit Ang malay, Doon kikidlat sa lupa Ang sangandaan. Magkakapakpak tayo. Malalagas ang araw Sa malillit na hibla Ng liwanag. Walang ihip Ang makapapatay Sa igting na lampara Ng loob. Kahit sa tigib Ng dilim Nasasapo ang talim Ng talinghaga. Paikutin ang ruleta Na nakatunghay ang mata sa iyo At ituturo ang mga posibilidad ng uniberso. Carlomar Arcangel Daoana

Gathering | May 9 - 30, 2026 Gathering Martin Honasan May 9 - 30, 2026 DSC01747.JPG 1/9 View Catalogue Video Press Release Gathering brings together sculptural works, two large-scale canvases, and a series of works on paper. Across the exhibition, traditional acrylic painting is combined with reclaimed fabrics—old T-shirts, canvas, and a tablecloth—hardened, collaged, and reworked. These materials carry prior use within them, allowing each piece to hold traces of touch, repetition, and time. At the center of the exhibition are two large works, Moveable Feast and The Uttermost Parts, which follow a shared structure. Each pairs a hand sculpture, placed on a pedestal in front of the painting and slightly lower in height, with a horizontal diptych. One panel (60 × 20 inches) bears accumulated paint from previous works, while the adjoining panel (60 × 72 inches) was completed this year. This format brings together what is carried over and what is newly made, allowing past and present surfaces to meet within a single image. In Moveable Feast, a fragmented figure stretches across both panels. Constructed from collaged fabric, the body remains visibly incomplete, like a statue with broken limbs. A tablecloth spans the composition, draped and folded as if in the process of being put away. Positioned just in front of the canvas, the hand casts a shadow that folds back into the image, extending the work into the viewer’s space. Despite its fragmentation, the piece remains open—its elements dispersed yet still held together by gesture and memory. The title draws from the term “moveable feast,” which originates in the liturgical calendar, where certain feast days shift each year rather than remaining fixed. More broadly, it suggests something portable—an experience or memory carried across time and place. Here, it reflects the transience of shared moments and the ways they persist in altered forms. The tablecloth, used during family meals throughout the pandemic, anchors the work in lived experience, recalling gatherings that gradually dissolved as routines resumed. The Uttermost Parts, while mirroring this structure, turns inward. A hand sculpture faces a narrower 60 × 20 inch panel marked by accumulated paint and a larger adjoining panel that is almost entirely submerged in black. From this darkened surface, remnants of earlier paint and texture remain exposed, forming faint, residual shapes that suggest a torso and fragments of limbs. The head of this partially revealed body is a self-portrait, emerging from and dissolving back into the ground. Where Moveable Feast disperses, this work contains—its image less assembled than excavated, as if drawn out from layers of concealment. The reused canvas of the larger panel reinforces this sense of return, erasure, and reconstitution. The accompanying series, Gatherings, consists of five 30 × 25 inch mixed-media works on paper. Fragments of the same tablecloth and worn shirts form their surfaces, over which rough, unfinished portraits of myself and my wife emerge and recede into the patterned ground. These smaller works echo the larger pieces, holding intimacy and distance in tension, as images surface and fall back into the material that carries them. Across the exhibition, acts of assembling, breaking, covering, and revealing become ways of approaching wholeness. The works move between dispersion and containment, absence and presence, suggesting that completeness is not restored intact but encountered in fragments, through persistence. These pieces are, in this sense, meditations on finding sustenance in the midst of lack—on how physical struggle can open into another form of nourishment. The materials themselves bear this out: worn, handled, and repurposed, they endure, carrying forward what has been used, tested, and lived through. The exhibition draws, quietly, from the passage in Deuteronomy that recalls a people led through the wilderness—humbled, made to hunger, and then fed with what they did not know. “Man does not live by bread alone,” but by what sustains beyond the visible and the immediate. In this context, gathering becomes not only an act of bringing things together, but of remembering: tracing the way something is held, provided for, and made whole over time, even as it passes through states of fragmentation and need.

Pastilan | March 13 - April 4, 2026 Pastilan Rey Labarento March 13 - April 4, 2026 1/7 View Catalogue Video Press Release OMP! (Oh My Pastilan!) Duality in life does not necessarily mean two distinct beings or situations. Sometimes it’s the same thing seen differently, meant differently. Visayan visual artist Rey Labarento explores this relationship in the exhibition “Pastilan.” In keeping with his previous works, Negros Island provincial life is depicted with much generosity in Labarento’s works, from people at basketball games, the local plazas, and anywhere around the town of Valencia and Dumaguete. Each of the paintings is a scene brimming with emotion, hence the expression “pastilan” Now this reaction can go both ways. It can be a “wow!” or a “tsk!” In “Drunk Man and the Scorers,” you can almost hear the children say “pastilan sabaa nimo kol” calling out the noisy uncle heckling from the bleachers, while in “Partners in Crime,” it’s the simple pastilan joy of a beer with your best friend. Next door it was “Game Over” after the card game, and manong mutters “pastilan walay swerte,” as he wonders if he can ask for a cigarette. Meanwhile, strength in numbers is a common tendency in the country — both the city and the countryside, much aligned with Philippine horror vacui aesthetics. In the Visayas, the habal-habal is a motorcyle ride where capacity is pushed to the limits, sometimes adding wooden planks to make extra seats. It easily elicits a “pastilan layo layo pa ang byahe” for being careless, but to the “Family Trip,” it’s a “pastilan” for the excitement. One of the more interesting scenes is from “Outdoor Massage” where one sees a pair of hands on a tree on the edge of the painting. This stems from the belief that the negative forces drawn out from the massage guest, when transferred to nature, helps the tree grow. It sounds “pastilan hinaya ra” until you realize, it’s not so far from humans exhaling carbon dioxide which becomes plant food. Being in Negros, a sense of adventure seems innate to anyone, whether you’re a local or “nadagit.” Trekking and running culture has always been around — pastilan fun until your feet are sore, and it becomes pastilan “Runner’s Foot.” “Ninja Boy” is a throwback to those times when, after watching a favorite superhero tv show, the kids would play around the house or outdoors, and the parents could only sigh “pastilan ning bataa.” In this era of phone picture documentation, moments are decided quickly “Pastilan! Chadaa uyy!” Whether it’s a photo of your friend “Framing You” or a mirror selfie “Picture Picture.” That moment your *slightly* tipsy friend says “Moses” while hanging out at the local river is the pastilan shot of the day. Of course, in some situations “pastilan” is only really a good feeling or a bad feeling, but we can’t deny its versatility as a way of expression. “Pastilan” as well links us to our greater Asian family, where there are words in the everyday vernacular that have a plethora of meanings that rely on context and experience. “Mai pen rai” in Thailand generally means “it’s okay” but has become multi-layered as a response. “Yabai” in Japanese previously meant a negative situation, but is now also used for strong immediate emotions, especially when something is really good. Rey Labarento in each of his exhibitions, especially outside his hometown, gently highlights that which makes Visayan culture meaningful and unique. While his style appears to fall under the characterizations of Naïve Art, they are actually complex layerings of human identity formed by the Negros mountains, the Visayas oceans, and the Dumaguete sun, to which I say: “Pastilan what an artist!” -Francisco Jin Sung Lee

Kapalaran | October 4 - November 1, 2025 Kapalaran Jonathan Dangue October 4 - November 1, 2025 DSC05581.webp 1/4 View Catalogue Video Press Release In Kapalaran, Jonathan Dangue turns his gaze toward the ancient cycle of the Chinese zodiac, reimagining its twelve animals not as static signs but as beings charged with spirit and movement. Each creature bears its familiar temperament: the pig breaks into a wide grin, the horse gathers its strength with forelegs raised and mane unfurled, the rooster caught in the instant of crowing, summoning the day. These presences are not merely sculptural forms but vessels of character, animated by their symbolic roles across centuries of belief and tradition. Dangue shapes his animals as assemblages of found objects, infused with attributes of fortune and prosperity. Among these are yuanbao—the boat-shaped ingots of wealth—and the pierced brass coins of Chinese lore, talismans once strung together to ward off misfortune. By embedding such emblems into his creatures, the artist situates them within a continuum of material and spiritual aspiration. In striking counterpoint to these animated forms are the artist’s own hands, cast in resin, amber-hued and luminous. Placed downward with fingertips touching the surface, they serve as both pedestal and anchor. They hold aloft the zodiac animals, yet also draw them back to the earth, reminding us that whatever celestial order the heavens might decree, the grounding of existence remains in human touch. Binding these figures is a coil of wire that spirals around hand and animal alike, as if tracing an unseen current of energy. It is at once tether and conduit, suggesting the luminous cord of destiny that threads through our lives. Dangue’s Kapalaran meditates on this tension: between forces believed to govern from above and the agency we carry within our grasp. The sculptures insist that while fate may be written in the stars, destiny is equally shaped by the weight and gesture of our own hands. -Carlomar Arcangel Daoana Jonathan Dangue Jonathan Dangue (b. 1984) is a Filipino sculptor, painter, and architect renowned for transforming brass into textured, expressive art that reflects both philosophical and emotive themes. Licensed in architecture, he won the Grand Prize in the 2011 and 2012 Metrobank Art & Design Excellence (MADE) competitions—first for sculpture with “Walang Pinanghahawakang Anuman sa Palad” and then in the architecture category. Dangue’s works balance intuition and planning, often incorporating everyday material like brass into his visual vocabulary. His pieces have been featured in solo and group shows such as Kabuluhan ng Buhay and Monumental Abstracts, and he has also designed the Department of Health’s regional office in Davao and created a commemorative MADE sculpture “Binhi”

Terraforming | April 11 - May 2, 2026 Terraforming Nina Garibay April 11 - May 2, 2026 1/7 View Catalogue Video Press Release Lay of the Land “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias In Terraforming, Nina Garibay constructs a visual archaeology of power, how it is formed, imposed, inherited, and ultimately undone. Drawing from archival images of Egyptian, Bronze Age, and medieval Christian origin, many sourced from institutional collections such as the British Museum, the Vatican Museum and the Cairo Museum, her paintings assemble civilizations into composite fields where time collapses and authority reveals both its continuity and its limits. The exhibition begins with a proposition: culture is engineered under conditions of power. What appears as tradition, belief, or identity is often the result of systems imposed to stabilize and organize society. Terraforming, in this sense, is not limited to the physical shaping of land. It names the broader capacity of power to reshape reality at scale. Land becomes territory. Territory becomes system. System becomes belief. What begins as an effort to establish order gradually produces structures that extend control over both environment and population. This process raises a fundamental question: Is culture shaped by force, or does it mutate through contact? The works suggest that what is often described as syncretism is not a neutral blending, but the residue of systems imposed and later adapted. Forms persist even as their original meanings shift. What survives is not the intact system, but its fragments, reorganized under new conditions. The material basis of this process is never far from view. The images Garibay draws from were themselves carved from stone, cast from earth, constructed from the ground up to give visible form to authority. In The Golden Hawk, dominion is aligned with divine sanction, recalling how rulers anchored power in the natural and the sacred. In Priestly Family, belief is stabilized through repetition, lineage, and institutional continuity. Authority is not only declared, it is reproduced. Yet even as these systems consolidate, they begin to detach from their foundations. This is most evident in Fondation, where the figure appears suspended, its base removed, its grounding uncertain. The work points to a stage at which structures remain intact but no longer hold. Authority persists, but its origin has thinned. The system continues, but without stable ground. Historical precedent makes this condition legible. Egypt, once a center of immense power, was successively absorbed into other empires. Its forms endured, but its sovereignty did not. The British Empire, which later collected and archived many of these remnants, followed a comparable trajectory. Its dominance depended on the control of circulation, trade routes, and strategic passages such as the Suez Canal. When that control weakened, the system it sustained began to falter. Whoever controls the terrain controls the narrative, but terrain itself is never fixed. This instability is brought into the present in The Tower. Its form recalls the Chrysler Building, a monument to industrial ambition and financial power. Yet here it appears less as a celebration than as a structure under pressure. The tower rises from the same logic that produced earlier monuments: expansion, consolidation, and the projection of permanence. But within that logic lies overextension. Systems expand because they are built to do so. Expansion generates strain. Strain leads to rupture. The collapse of the tower is not an anomaly, but a structural outcome. In this light, terraforming emerges not as a singular act, but as an ongoing condition. Power reorganizes reality, stabilizes it, extends it, and in doing so produces the conditions for its own instability. What follows is not disappearance, but transformation. The system collapses, yet the terrain it reshaped remains altered. Forms endure. Symbols persist. Meanings are reassigned. Each system leaves behind structures and meanings that persist beyond its control. If the remnants of past civilizations now appear to us as fragments, rigid, monumental, and partially understood, the future offers no clearer resolution. It remains a terra incognita, shaped by the same processes of control, adaptation, and collapse. What rises will not remain. What falls will not fully vanish. Each new order begins not from nothing, but from what has already been transformed. -BG

Reset Kris Gavino August 2 - 30, 2025 Add a Title Describe your image Add a Title Describe your image Add a Title Describe your image Add a Title Describe your image 1/12 In Reset, Kris Gavino charts a liminal space where time loses its tyranny—where the past no longer haunts, and the future no longer threatens. What remains is the present: fragile, vivid, suspended like a breath held between sleep and waking. Gavino’s latest suite of paintings contemplates time not as a sequence but as a felt experience, subjective and shifting, folded in on itself by memory, imagination, and desire. Here, time is not kept by calendars or clocks, but by the human body—its weariness, its need for stillness, its quiet rituals of renewal. In “Rejuvenation,” a slumbering figure lies between worlds, cradled by a landscape that seems less inhabited than dreamed. The borders between body and ground blur, as if sleep itself were a threshold where the interior self dissolves into the elements. The atmosphere is one of silence, solitude, and that elusive sense of repose that arrives only when we surrender the need to measure or control. Gavino punctuates these soft, introspective settings with the image of a clock—an object made for personal timekeeping, capable of being rewound, reset. Set against imagined terrains, the watch becomes a poignant marker of human presence: minuscule in the face of geologic time, yet insistently ticking. How absurd, the works seem to ask, to frame the ancient earth with our fleeting concerns. And yet, how deeply human to try. In “Silence Between Thoughts,” a quiet self-portrait begins to fade into the landscape, as though the figure were not placed upon nature but made of it. There is no drama in the dissolution, only a steady, graceful yielding—a reminder that all things, including the self, are subject to erosion. The title evokes the ephemeral space between mental noise, where clarity sometimes blooms: not in assertion, but in the pause. Gavino writes, “Perspective is subjective. Having vision without sight may lead us to rely on the other senses, at times can be overwhelming. It is foolish to run the risk of going mad for sanity’s sake. Rest becomes more costly the more we need it... Ultimately, there will come an event where life will hit the reset button.” That “reset” may arrive suddenly or slowly, as a rupture or as grace. Either way, Reset invites us to meet it—not with resistance, but with awareness. To dwell, if only briefly, in a space outside of time. To listen for the silence. To rest. And perhaps, in doing so, to begin again. '- Carlomar Arcangel Daoana 1/1

Eve | July 6 - August 3, 2024 Eve Tony Mercado July 6 - August 3, 2024 1/6 View Catalogue Video Press Release Emerging From the Depths In Tony Mercado’s Eve, the artist explores life's beginnings and the nurturing forces that deliver us from the depths of existence. He depicts women in various states of emergence, their reflections shimmering and seemingly imparting obscure wisdom. Mercado’s canvases are awash with muted hues that evoke the fluidity of water, the quintessential element of life. Water has the qualities of both comfort and unpredictability, representing both the womb and the mirror. Life originates in water, and life is maintained and rejuvenated by it. Thus, the artist channels this energy of rebirth, making visible the protective embrace of the feminine spirit as encapsulated in each brushstroke that depicts the moment of resurfacing—a delicate balance between submersion and ascent. Women are painted with precision and gentility. Calm demeanors pervade though their faces are immersed in water, which shows how the mellifluous medium both bolsters and tests them. These figures are not just rising but awakening, embodying the resilience and nurturing strength inherent in all beginnings. Instead of drowning, they face their predicament with poise and grace. Their wavy reflections emphasize the ongoing dialogue between their past selves and the emerging present, creating a moving transformation narrative. Mercado invites us to witness the intimate moments of resurrection and self-discovery, cleverly providing witty twists to his imagery. One of his women faces away, breaking the collection’s pattern of confronting the viewer directly or else giving a wary side-eye. In another piece, he turns the landscape upside down, reinforcing the dreamlike settings he builds for his muses. These paintings transcend simple realism, enabling each observer to make personal reciprocities with the flowing lines and glistening reflections. Though the warmth and care portrayed in these pieces are evident, they also allow for individual interpretation, inspiring viewers to fully engage in the pieces as they reflect on their own contemplative journeys. As Mercado’s Eve offers a palpable manifestation of reassurance enfolding, the artist reminds us of the nurturing forces that guide us from the depths and lift us. As he lets his women rise through the surface, focused feminine energy guides us through the ebb and flow, the artist's adulation fueling the way his portrayals cast ripples that embed themselves in our consciousness. Kaye O’Yek

Nomad Azor Pazcoguin Add a Title Describe your image Add a Title Describe your image Add a Title Describe your image Add a Title Describe your image 1/12 If Life Is A Journey In NOMAD, Azor Pazcoguin strips his art down to the essentials, exploring the complex simplicity and depths of monochromes. This latest solo show transforms concrete surfaces and layered textures into visual poetry, capturing the quiet power of structures and journeys alike. With each painting, Pazcoguin composes a tactile experience that’s as much about feeling as it is about seeing. The works in NOMAD might appear grounded at first glance (with one literally labeled in Japanese kanji as underground), yet they tell stories of movement and identity, place and bearing. With the subtle yet clear layering of text on his Apt. pieces—This Place contrasting with Displace, Undercover seeking Exit—Pazcoguin’s brush brings to life the facades of buildings, playing with their storeys and shadows, recalling the places one’s traveled to and the transient connections left behind. In his hands, concrete becomes a symbol—both a marker of stability and a reminder of the ever-shifting stages of life. With 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Person, however, his surface interventions serve as mutable markers for the evolving personas we wear, mirroring the identities we adopt as we navigate different places and circumstances. They remind us that who we were before probably is way different from who we are now, while V and B beckon us to embark on new road trips and exciting adventures to find out more things about ourselves and the world. As these monochromatic pieces invite viewers to experience the pervading changeability of people and places, Pazcoguin’s careful layering and scraping techniques evoke a sense of grounding, as if each work is imbued with the weight of memories and miles traveled. Despite their restrained palette, his pieces are rich with tactile depth, revealing new details with each glance and shadow, urging audiences to touch, linger, and reflect on their own journeys. NOMAD reminds us that we’re all travelers, cruising through a life of shifting landscapes and continuous reinvention. Pazcoguin’s art is a pause on this endless road, offering a moment to see where we’ve been and consider where we’re going next. It’s a timeless message for anyone seeking connection, simplicity, and the meaning behind the marks we leave behind. Kaye O’Yek Azor Pazcoguin 1/1