THREE-WOMAN EXHIBITION with Gale Encarnacion and Kitty Kaburo
Curated by Ling Quisumbing Ramilo
Investigatory Projects
MO_space
16 February — 17 March 2019
We have often come to perceive the world and its things as inert and distinct. Barring natural disasters, the plethora of man-made constructions and natural formations have lent the analog world a sense of solidity—far removed from the abstract network s, systems, and transactions that seemingly operate beyond our control. Indeed, for centuries we have fashioned things from the earth for our needs. And the products of our efforts (the artifacts, tools, structures, products) physically surround us in our every waking day. They mediate our appearances, our interactions, and our relations. Yet they remain apart from us, stodgy and unyielding. Mere matter to be used, consumed, and in the end, discarded.
This distinction is brought to question in “Investigatory Projects”, featuring the works of artists Gale Encarnacion, Kitty Kaburo, and Nicole Tee. The exhibition invites a playful reckoning of things metamorphosed, of the familiar made strange. This is achieved through a diverse plethora of artistic processes: burning, melting, embroidering, painting, filming, photographing, floating, decaying. Folded cloth is cast into mountainous landscapes hearkening to geologic time. The thawing of frozen plastic detritus, household chemicals, and paint brings rapid clima tological changes to fore. Food is decayed beyond human edibility, its chemical breakdown hastened by the growth of molds. All are documented via recording technologies that transcend the capabilities of our senses and time-bound bodies. As adjustments are made in our temporal and spatial registers, we find inertness give way to state change. All that is solid shifts, melts, disintegrates, folds, and flows.
The artists’ inquiry into materiality resonate with current anthropological concerns on ecology a nd the environment, of the non-human actors of animals, plants, places, objects, and artifacts. In a similar vein, these artistic investigations seemingly decenter the anthropological gaze. Yet the act of inquiry, of reflection and observation, remains a uniquely human endeavor. The interactions of things extend to our own involvement to the world, and in return, of the world’s involvement with us. How have we changed the world and how has it changed us?
Indeed, it ill behooves us to be reminded that we are more porous than we lead ourselves to believe.
— JC Rosette
Folds - Oil on canvas - 4 x 6 feet - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches (each) - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019Approximate - Oil and embroidery on canvas - 8 x 10 inches - 2019
photos courtesy of MO_space