The stage is set for scenes that rise above the surface,barely above the level. The ground circulates around the museum. In fact, the museum becomes it, surrounded by details of a moving theatre, or better still, aspects of design that make this theatre quite present though also quite elusive, dispersed like the semblance of sea around it.
The trace to history is sheer but salient. Filipino mariners in the nineteenth century jumped off the fabled Manila Galleon and settled in Saint Malo in the Louisiana bayou. This was the kernel of a community that in the 1930's morphed into the Manila Village in Barataria Bay in the Mississippi Delta by the Gulf of Mexico. From such a site came the Manila Men who took off the shells of shrimps by the nimble movement of their adroit feet, conjuring a kind of dance that is also intense, obsessive labor.
The exhibition speaks to this historical moment and restates it across a range of devices that transpose the said narrative or event and its effects. A beguiling scenography thus is created, animated by remixed music of ritual chant and electronic drone, sprawling painting, enigmatic text, costume, museum memorabilia and furniture, and the pervasive tint of blue from both fluorescent and decal. The artist performs diverse roles in making all this happen: researcher, production designer, creative director, music mixer, painter. In this heady ensemble, the tale of the Filipino seafarer named Kerel is inevitably evoked, a traveler across time zones, mired in the fine grain of work, in the silhouette of structure, in the world of water.
While the tangent of history is cast cogently, the mode of knowing is mythic, intuitive, aleatory. The body inhabits a space of fantasy, memory, and the very urgent experiment of figuring out a liquid present: the eye is fooled, the senses swim in various data (sand, mannequin, mirror), and the migrant in the museum finally faces and feels the artifice of relations, or those ties that put in place or shed those layers of self.
Dr. Patrick D. Flores
Curator
University of the Philippines
Vargas Museum
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Untitled (I must admit, its getting better..)
Vinyl Decal on museum facade windows Variable dimensions 2016 |
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Untitled (The Village)
Site-Specific Installation Acrylic on plywood and on museum column,sand and found museum detritus Variable dimensions 2016 |
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| Untitled (My heart was cracked open many times, but left only the shadow of a scar as it healed) Acrylic on canvas on plywood, metal hardware, crate, mannequin, wig, light, towel,vest, helmet,roller brush Variable dimensions 2016 |
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| Installation View |
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Detail view
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| Untitled (You were my therapist back then, you know?) Acrylic on canvas on plywood, metal, plinth, sewn fabrics, hangers,acrylic on sculpted foam,framed inkjet print,foam board, sand, Tilandsia,yoga mat Variable dimensions 2016 |
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| Installation View |
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Untitled (Kerel's Self Portrait #8)
Acrylic and medium on paper 29 1/2" x 43 1/2" 2016 |
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Untitled (And I know you're not that man,that mystical gypsy I sharpened my teeth on
and left there on the road)
Acrylic paint on plinths, acrylic on sculpted foam, metal, framed inkjet print, chair,
borrowed museum artefacts such as wood cane,vase,book,ashtray,acrylic cases
Variable dimensions
2016
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| Detail view |
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Untitled (I was conceived when my father came home from sea...)
Acrylic on paper, acrylic on metal scaffold, platform 4 feet x 33 feet 2016 |
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| Detail view |
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| Untitled (I want to get past the pain, but I never want to forget it..) Acrylic on plywood, fabric curtains,curtain rods,sculpted foam,ladder, insulation tape,mirror, iTouch, speakers,2-minute looped sound piece Variable dimensions 2016 |
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Detail view
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| Installation View |
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| Untitled (The dust of the enchanted miles sticks in my throat,muddy, and brings quiet to the rage) Acrylic on canvas on plywood, hardware, sculpted foam, motor, sand, mannequin, gloves, dust mask, sewn fabric , vest, lights, acrylic wall stickers Variable dimensions 2016 |
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| Performance |
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| Collaborative performance with Daloy Dance Company |
