REVIEW

REVIEW
December 22,Wednesday, 6-9pm
Slab

Over the years, SLab Artists Mariano Ching, Christina Dy, Patricia Eustaquio and Gary-Ross Pastrana have each taken part in International Art Fairs and have shown with Galleries abroad. But 2010 has been extra special. Ching had a solo exhibition in Kyoto’s Voice Gallery, and with Pastrana, was invited to the Aichi Triennale. CD took part in the Busan Biennale, and Eustaquio showed at the Hong Kong Art Center. This December, their respective works come home.

Mariano Ching and Gary-Ross Pastrana were both invited to the inaugural Aichi Triennial in Nagoya. Set in an industrial city, home of Toyota, this year’s emphasis was on “Cutting-Edge Art, Festive Spirit and Fusing Genres”. Triennale Director Akira Tatehata describes it as looking into “the significance of art to cities and the significance of cities to art”, while at the same time awakening the relationships between art genres.

Ching joined curator Tan Jui Chen, together with Wu Hong, Meng Xiangyu, Hu Bo, and Tan Ru Yi in an exhibition entitled "Foreign Chinese in Contemporary Art". Known for his paintings on a variety of materials, from metal to wooden hands, Ching transfers his peculiarly themed works to vinyl records. He narrows in on the middle where the painting is restricted to a small diameter and zoomed focus.

Pastrana, on the other hand, took part in the exhibition "Chute" with Hoang Duong Cam, Hanae Utamura and Takayuki Yamamoto, curated by Hikaru Miyakawa. “Chute” or fall is about objects that signify falls – from the literal fall due to gravity, the metaphorical fall from grace, to the fall in love. Here Pastrana crafts a wooden ladder, which is then burnt. And from the ashes, he molds a black bird. In this case, the fall is from an unsuccessful climb up. In transforming the ladder into something new, could it then be a metaphor for a time to pick up the ashes and fly?

Christina Dy brings her characteristic large-scale charcoal drawings to the 10th Busan Biennale. This year’s theme, “Living in Evolution”, draws attention to “artworks as points where the life of one person—the artist—intersects with the evolution of the human race”. In particular, art takes a vital part in man’s intellectual evolution. In the ebbs and tides of history, art stands as a witness. Dy’s 3.6 x 18 meter “Untitled” drawing of the Batanes Seascape is representative of art- always there but always changing. Like water, eternal and ephemeral.

Patricia Eustaquio was one of thirteen Asian artists in a show called “Popping Up” at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. Curated by Fumio Nanjo (director of Mori Art Museum, Tokyo), the exhibition looks into “the relationship between 2D and 3D in contemporary art “ through “a diverse selection of new and original artworks including soft sculptures, 3D paper sculptures, mixed media painting objects, digital visual and audio installations, public art”

Eustaquio’s sculpture of crochet and epoxy, “Psychogenic Fugue”, a fossilized exoskeleton of an upright piano is an interaction between flat surfaces and hollow dimensions. First exhibited in Eustaquio’s “Death of the Major, Viva Minor”, the 2008 Inaugural solo show at SLab, “Psychogenic Fugue” is a shell, a covering for the empty space underneath. If not for the epoxy, the lace will lay flat. The apparent volume is misleading. What is there, isn’t. What seems soft, isn’t. And what we think we can touch is not supposed to be touched at all.

Review with Mariano Ching, Christina Dy, Patricia Eustaquio and Gary-Ross Pastrana opens on December 22,2010. It runs simultaneously with Objects by Patricia Eustaquio in 20SQUARE until January 15,2011.

GALLERY HOURS FOR THE HOLIDAYS:
Silverlens will be closed Dec. 24-27 and Dec. 31-Jan. 3. Silverlens will be open starting January 4, 2011.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Words: Bea Davila; Images clockwise: Gary-Ross Pastrana, Set Fire to Free, detail, 2003/2010; Christina Dy, Untitled (Tides), detail, 2010, Mariano Ching, Records from Apartment Block D Series 1, detail; 2010, Patricia Estaquio, Psychogenic Fugue, detail, 2008