Shrines

Curated by Isa Lorenzo, the summer exhibition at Silverlens New York prospects vocabularies on the immanence of more-than-human ecologies, symbolism and iconography embodied in contexts of diaspora, repatriation and social dissonance. The works in Shrines are poignant approaches to identity, hinged on the conditions of the body, where the corpus as vessel engenders belief systems and ensouls distinct worlds of personal histories. Converging in a node that is “Philippines”, the artists featured here complicate the representations that emanate from holding Filipino palimpsests of experiences. Instead, their works are a provocation of understanding practice as spiritual animation: devotion made flesh, spirit made material.

Photography by Gina Osterloh and Poklong Anading and a self-portrait from Santiago Bose contend with formalistic tropes entangled by self-imaging and gesture. The body as a potent and portentous site is also summoned by Judy Freya Sibayan’s talismanic documents of her performance and Wawi Navarroza’s altars in the mis-en-scene of a photograph. In facing up to the legacies of colonial capitalism, Norberto Roldan, Kawayan De Guia and Patricia Eustaquio intercede for cultural rehabilitation through collective fragments in history. Works by Carlos Villa, Eric Zamuco and Gary-Ross Pastrana usher us to objects, or processes that make and undo things, as meditation and physical mediations on the ubiquitous and sometimes disorderly divine. Lani Maestro’s neon signs, alongside Chati Coronel and Catalina Africa’s paintings, synthesise forms of invocations. Voices of home and memories of belonging rest in the sculptures of Stephanie Comilang and Ryan Villamael where speculative landscapes re-world uprooted psyches. The exhibition Shrines houses very particular expressions of attending to the transcendent, through symbol and matter, in brevity or under layered patinas of incantation, by way of the artist as a supplicant for spirit to be within reach.

Included artists:
Catalina Africa, Poklong Anading, Santiago Bose, Stephanie Comilang, Chati Coronel, Patricia Perez Eustaquio, Kawayan de Guia, Lani Maestro, Wawi Navarroza, Gina Osterloh, Gary-Ross Pastrana, Norberto Roldan, Judy Freya Sibayan, Carlos Villa, Ryan Villamael, Eric Zamuco