Current Works
Pep Manalang
My philosophy of art-making is influenced by the concept of mindfulness. I start with the bare minimum – a distilled idea and a preliminary composition. Working instinctively, the painting develops with a minimum of pre-planning. I am concerned with the process of creation being genuine and uncontrived. I do not want to be consciously aware of my decision- making process. I work with acrylic for immediacy because it enables me to make numerous changes rapidly. I often use particulate matter such as pumice, sand, and lumina. Materiality plays a central role in my work in the way it limits and facilitates ideas.
I believe that an artwork has an array of possible directions so I take a leap of faith and keep an open mind. I aim to create paintings in a loose yet precise manner, without overthinking. There is a balancing act between opposing forces – the conscious versus the unconscious, control versus abandon. At best, the process of creation is inherently worthwhile. I hope that what I felt during the creation process will translate into something that resonates with the viewer. In this way we will have a shared experience through the medium of the artwork.
Robert Gutierrez
The current paintings are essentially psychic landscapes and animistic in nature. The source material of the narratives in the work is a mix of the indigenous folklore of my childhood past with the ramshackle architecture in present Manila. The trickster archetype animated in religiousness is foremost in many of the stories. Quasi-spiritual landmarks manifest in the cracks and crevices of a quixotic terrain. Shifting elements within the picture plane transform toward a seemingly precarious scenario. It is a landscape populated with all the pleasures and fears of the collective mind.
Reina Cruz
The patterns in Reina Cruz’s paintings — lines, dots, checks — extend beyond the paintings. The canvas is a frame that contains a moment, idea or impression, not just of how things look, but how they feel when you come closer and notice that not all stripes, marks and dots are painted the same. Aside from looking at the obvious lines, dots, checks and blobs, you are invited to read between the lines and shapes. There is joy in open spaces. They may be blank, but they are not empty.
July 2021
Jet Pascua
Jet Pascua works with various media such as sculpture, installation, video, film, performance, drawing, photography, and painting. His artistic production also involves organizing and activism, and he is the founding director of Small Projects. A non profit art initiative which started in Manila in 2001, and moved to Norway in 2011. Many of his artworks are temporal in nature. Temporal in terms of time, by using found objects that is returned after an exhibition, and by using repetitive action and time-based works. And also temporal in terms of its secularity, in the form of a critique of established religious and political beliefs. He works conceptually and claim no particular style, although his artistic production revolve around the question of being, displacement, memory, identity, social justice and community.
Katarina Sabine Ortiz
Katarina Sabine Ortiz is a Filipino multimedia artist that lives and works in the Philippines. She has acquired her BFA from Central Saint Martins (UAL), UK. Her interests are in developing discourses related to self, identity, languge, and symbolism particulrly through drawing, and technological post-production processes.
