Kim Oliveros
Neil de la Cruz
Rocelie Delfin
Kim Oliveros
Neil de la Cruz
Rocelie Delfin
DEX FERNANDEZ
Spectrum So Far So Good
Dex Fernandez wanders through another chapter of life, moving from 22ESB75CC to 120.
In his previous exhibition at the tall gallery, he chronicled an eventful two years of death, violence, and healing through a maximalist depiction of frenzy and limitless energy. A form of catharsis, he was able to push the boundaries of his art-making by visually capturing a sprawling universe. Reality would have to immediately begin though. Years pass by so quickly and this current exhibition perhaps becomes a sensing of sorts.
How are you in the current moment? How are you in the grand scheme of things?
Spectrum of So Far So Good is a reflexive moment. We are taken into a journey where we can enjoy speculations of a narrative made possible by transformation of figures and vectors that are both ambitious and deliberate. Sometimes viewers can be distracted by the artist’s vivacious demeanor, but Fernandez is deeply concerned with the formal and aesthetic qualities of his art. It’s exciting to see how the new works display technical skill and thoughtful conceptualization. The contradicting position of exposing and cloaking becomes necessary for the storyteller to keep us off balance, a feeling that is both uncomfortable and exhilarating. As an artist who strives to always improve himself, the obsessive consistency is palpable. Still very much present is what writer Carlomar Daoana previously described as a “movement, dance, the impulse to connect and disengage… expanding from the streets, to the bars, to the hectic textures of cities, to the evolving spheres populated with flashing gizmos and signs and motifs—staggering in scope, unstoppable in its expansion, hypnotic in its repetitions.” Notice this time there is restraint, breathing space, a consciousness of being present.
“It is this mode of apprehension above all that governs the new deciphering that we have given of the subject’s relations to that which makes his condition.” This was written by psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan talking about chance encounters—an aspect of repetition that interrupts. The artist’s ‘apprehension’ becomes an apparatus to spotlight the moments he tends to romanticize and memorialize captured from his chance encounters with people, objects, scenes, and energies. His current condition, preoccupied by his queerness, anxieties on and of maturing, fresh ventures and adventures, becomes a landscape for ‘the new deciphering.’ The two-dimensional works are animated; each artwork a cel. Characters enter the frame and the exits are another round of introductions. These artistic decisions and processes are laborious and intricate. They compel us to appreciate every chapter of existence; we reflect not only on the phases of the artist’s creative life, but our own as well.
Hope you are (also) in this spectrum of so far, so good.
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Con Cabrera
PAM QUINTO
The Weight of Being, A Living Thing Cracked Open
FAYE ABANTAO
To Conquer a Home
Home is a complicated concept, often riddled with clichés. Home is where the heart is. There is no place like home. For Faye Abantao, home is her anchor for artistic production. She uses paper, old photographs, and everyday objects gathered from her home. More potently, her artistic growth evolves as her lived experience within her home shifts. As a child, it was the walls she colored in creative expression. As an adult and developing artist, it was the bits and pieces of peeling paint, slowly dilapidating over time–transcending toward portraiture and installations. Now, the home unravels with children grown and parents aging.
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Faces are now missing from Abantao’s canvas. They are no longer portrayed but are watching outside the canvas. Instead, a slowly creeping decay unfurls–an unopened door, an empty chair, a pile of boxes, and wilting flowers. It is as if time stands still while the moment of contemplation is already gone. There is quiet waiting, with life’s imprints standing still in constant limbo of both belonging and displacement.
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The home changes. Inevitably, children grow. They marry and move out. They explore careers and other locales. There is sadness as the familiar becomes memories. Sharing a meal, boisterous noises, and being in the same space are safe, familiar, and wrapped up in warm comfort. But with time comes growth, then age and the present transforms into remembrances. The question hangs in the air, to stand still or move? Slowly, things crumble, yet the feelings persist and endure. (Portia Placino)
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About the Artist
Faye Abantao is a visual artist based in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines. She looks into memories, contemplation, and personal experiences as trajectories in her artistic practice. Recent works involved experimentation in collage and weaving as processes of expressing thoughts and inner turmoil. She was the recipient of the Karen H. Montinola Award in 2021. To Conquer a Home is her sixth solo exhibition in over a decade of creative practice. Aside from numerous local and international group exhibitions, Abantao expanded her perspective through residencies in Malaysia, Germany, and South Korea.