Definition of Never-Never Land: An imaginary place where everything is pleasant or perfect in a way that is impossible to achieve in real life. A childhood diary is a written record of life’s earliest memories. It preserves the critical bits and pieces of a person’s formative years: one’s way of thinking how a person sees the […]
Calamity reeks through the air. In every turn, a bombardment of issues and negativity seep through our every day. Mariano Ching and Yasmin Sison’s two-man exhibition “Does It Matter Who You Are?” is a series of portraits that seize the apprehensions and anxieties of living in today’s political climate. As though in deep breaths, paint […]
There is something about the Finale Art Gallery at the La Fuerza Compound along Pasong Tamo in Makati, Philippines, that makes me feel that things are coming to an end. In 2011, I owned up to all mistakes ever made by installing a giant “SORRY” made with electric lights and found materials on the big […]
In the three-work exhibition “Violence Need Not Be Bloody For It To Be Validated As Such” at the Finale Art File, artist Nikki Luna attempts to find another layer of discussion on feminism — a topic she has special eye and heart on — in juxtaposition to the political backdrop the country is currently running in. Nikki […]
Artist’s Statement There are seemingly two narratives in this space. The five thousand bullets were planned months ago to approximate the drug-related extra-judicial killings, with the thought of giving the tally a generous leeway. To date, there are more than 6000 victims, outnumbering the bullets by a thousand. Meanwhile, on the other wall is a […]
Jonathan Ching’s latest solo exhibition of new works in painting revolves around the wanderer’s sensate encounter with the street: an exploration of place, inhabited by things, and a revisiting of ways to look at the ubiquitous presences of the everyday. Five paintings attest to Ching’s affinity for delving into such states of wonder, all starting […]
icharos asked: “I think you could make a living creating words to describe such deeply intimate sorrows. It would be like going to a doctor but instead of prescribing medication, you give torment a name, and suddenly tangled emotions fall neatly into place and with that quiet word, you can breathe.” Beautiful idea, and my […]
The physical vessel succumbs, and then the state of dying becomes death. Right on the precipice of this event every single neuron streams and surges to deliver the most paralyzing euphoria so great and fierce that it can numb and veil the most agonizing of terminal bodily pains. And just like that, as swift as […]
Garcellano and Flores’ exposition begins with a consideration of six seed works drawn from the history of Western academic painting as an idea exported into the country. Anchoring their own works to these canonical points, the artists dramatize their subjective positions within the landscape of the contemporary Philippine gallery system. Addressing the seed paintings in […]
