CURATORIAL STATEMENT

In a time when the concept of “distance” has never been brazen, the works of ten artists from different parts of the world delve into a process of how art fulfills the different iterations of attachment and connection through transformations of materials, spaces, and actions. “Finding Proximity” considers works from different vantage points that look at the methods and systems involved in the creation and production of art, hence, articulating portrayals, accounts, statements, or even the absence of a story.

Featuring recent works from Mina Katsuki, Yasuhiro Hara, Denise Heredia, Geremy Samala, Chico Cristobal, Tammy De Roca, Pablo Bermudez, Jem Magbanua, Gabby Prado, and Jonas Eslao, the exhibition attempts to understand the dynamics of making art that consolidates elements from what seems like a medley of a continued visual rendering.

Perhaps, what is prominent among the works presented in this show is the imposition of each artist’s presence and the actions involved in the intervention, between medium and material. From paintings to collages, paper cuts to heavily textured brush strokes, every work testifies — evident of life temporarily suspended in a myriad of complexities due to the pandemic.

The works of Mina Katsuki and Jem Magbanua evoke the stillness of time found in their portrayals of what may appear as blue horizons. These works stitch together minimalist and quiet tales while in periods of isolation. Meanwhile, the performative aspect of painting is what binds the works of Yasuhiro Hara and Jonas Eslao. These two artists use the canvas as an arena, where their bodies wrestle in the process of painting, observing the relationship of the movements of their body to the resulting depictions on the painting. While Eslao explores abstraction through giant strokes that magnify the invisible actions of the artist’s arms and hand, Hara consciously limits his movements to small calculated gestures applied to the canvas.

The translation of their environment is what informs the works of Geremy Samala and Gabby Prado. Patterns, landscapes, and indoor spaces dominate Samala’s chaotic, and yet, riveting paintings. On the other hand, synesthesia —a condition in which one sense overlaps with another— has become the departure point of Prado’s works. The playful arrangement of colors in her paintings is a documentation of what the artist sees when certain sounds are heard.

The constant use of texture, particularly the impasto technique, links together the works of Tammy De Roca and Denise Heredia. Thick layers of paint and other medium are applied on the surface that result to works, which potentially challenge the integration of painting and sculpture.

The dimensions of color and the intersection of elements are what precede the works of Pablo Bermudez and Chico Cristobal. Although working with separate and very distinct mediums and themes, a dominant force in their execution is the understanding of how colors and layers fit inside the composition. Using re-appropriated printed materials, Bermudez creates sculptures and assemblages from paper. His works are filled with puns that explore multiple associations of language and images. Subsequently, Cristobal’s survey through colors and geometric forms produces a convergence of the contemporary and hints at modernist masters.

The weight of “distance” among ourselves can never be truly quantified, especially in a time like now. The realization that our tendency to be more connected and related to each other, as both vast and limited, is something that should be pondered on as we navigate through a new way of living; as we survive through new societal structures.