Future Present
Bjorn Calleja, Clarence Chun, Datu Arellano, Dexter Sy, Edo Pop, Erick Encinares, Gabby Tiongson, Gene Paul Martin, Iabadiou Piko, Jill Paz, Kawayan De Guia, MM Yu, Pinky Ibarra Urmaza, Rico Entico, Rinne Abrugena, Ros Johnson, and Van Tuico
September 2 - 29, 2022
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
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BJORN CALLEJA
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CLARENCE CHUN
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DATU ARELLANO
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DEXTER SY
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EDO POP
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ERICK ENCINARES
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GABRIEL TIONGSON
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GENE PAUL MARTIN
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IABADIOU PIKO
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JILL PAZ
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KAWAYAN DE GUIA
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MM YU
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PINKY IBARRA URMAZA
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RICO ENTICO
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RINNE ABRUGENA
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ROS JOHNSON
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VAN TUICO
“Time is not a thing... and yet it remains constant in its passing away, without being something temporal, like the beings in time.” (Martin Heidegger)
Space is static, and time is always in movement. For this reason, the flow of moments are precisely what makes us engaged in life. Yet chances are finite in eternity. Like in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's A Psalm of Life, "Art is long, and Time is fleeting". This limited duration of life encourages action in the living present. While the rhythm of the hour can never be touched, creating with material forces makes a tangible mark—and for a second, stops the motion of the clock. It’s in this immersion of the world that art claims the future, while also claiming the essence of now. To find placement in the natural world, the artist engages materially with the three dimensions of space, and purposefully with the fourth dimension of time. Minimizing the distance between tenses, Future Present rolls off naturally in its expression. Since the inaugural exhibition Extreme Present in 2017, this 2022 edition shows evolution through maturing styles of notable Philippine and international artists. The project has developed at a growing velocity since the show’s emergence—from speculative questions of what is original to solid assertions that this is original. This progression of work attests to the show’s innovative energy. By continuous proposals that have redefined contemporary realities, what is exhibited today shows an apex in step with the forward-thinking platform of the Mono8 space. Each work acts as a contending force hyper-aware of the fluid present: They break dimensions, peeling past wallpaper to show bare brick, layered by piercing stares above meta-images. Industrial materials take on playful forms hinting at the installation process. Sculptures reveal cryptic constitutions, while painted lines surge in unusual, innovative directions. The variety of media is executed with a sense of theenigmatic, with evidence of meticulous strokes and craftsmanship. These free techniques emphasize the period at hand, finding oneself farther from yesterday. A study of phenomena and experience, a Period Eye or a discourse of the possibility of tomorrow, the artist imagines the empirical while expanding their own practice. Through these assertions of originality, new questions arise as meditations on the nature and role of creation, connecting to not just the viewer but a greater mode of being. Like Rudolf Otto's concept of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the work inspires an experience resolutely oriented towards the future. As time remains constant in its passing, these visual exchanges explore temporal relevance, with the aim to trailblaze through schools of thought in existence. The series stops the clock, capturing the Zeitgeist of the contemporary. By going beyond the material, both future and present are made more potent.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Lala Singian (b. 1996) is a writer of exhibition notes for both Philippine and international artists, while a contributor to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. She has formerly worked as a docent at the National Museum of the Philippines, an assistant at Artinformal gallery, and content writer at art-list.com. Currently she is taking her Masters degree in Art Studies at the University of the Philippines.
Selected works from Future Present
Bjorn Calleja, Cultural Furniture, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 39.37 x 54.33 in (100 x 138 cm)
Bjorn Calleja (b. 1981) is a Filipino painter and interdisciplinary artist renowned for paintings and sculptures with a distinct style of humanoid figures. In recent years he has gained esteem in the international digital art community for NFT artworks and animations. In 2004, he graduated with a BFA in Advertising Arts from Far Eastern University, where he later became a part-time lecturer. Recent solo exhibitions in 2022 include Antonyms of Meaning at West Gallery and a significant solo presentation at the ArtFair Philippines/Projects Section Unknown Unknowns.
Clarence Chun, You’re in the middle of my picture, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in (121.9 x 91.4 cm)
Clarence Chun (b. 1975) is a Filipino-American artist whose works have been exhibited widely in Southeast Asia, the United States, and Europe. His work is in the permanent collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art (USA), Hawai’i State Art Museum (USA), and the National Museum of Fine Arts (PH). In 1999, he was awarded the Ellen Battell Stoekel Fellowship from Yale University School of Art. He later received his BFA in Painting cum laude from the University of Houston School of Art and his MFA in Painting from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has recently held solo exhibitions It's Always a Relief to See You Again at Blanc Gallery in 2021 and Across Waters with Mono8 Gallery for Art Fair Philippines in 2020.
Datu Arellano, PTP-#emdLWS6r, 2022, Collage (shredded manga pages on canvas), 24 x 24 in (61 x 61 cm)
Datu Arellano is a Filipino visual artist, musician, designer, a retired front-end web developer and educator based in Manila, Philippines. He is an active member of the Anino Shadowplay Collective, a group that specializes in multimedia shadow puppetry. His practice straddles visual and performing arts, with traditional forms of drawing, painting, and sculpture, as well as the experimental aspects of sound design, music, and video; and the commercial contexts of graphic design. After graduating from the Philippine High School for the Arts as a Visual Arts Major in 1998, he took a Major in Computer Science at the University of the Philippines College Baguio, as well as a Certificate in Painting from U.P. Diliman (1999). He recently participated in the group exhibition 16 at Artinformal Greenhills in August 2020.
Dexter Sy, Birthmark, 2022, Mixed media on acupuncture model, vinyl, 17 7/8 x 5 7/8 x 4 3/8 in (45.5 x 15 x 11 cm)
Dexter Sy (b. Manila, 1979) artistically approaches the cultural particularities of being a Chinese-Filipino. The coexistence of two traditional value systems, which are both seemingly waning in day-to-day life, perform as a theoretical source for his work. He received his BFA in Advertising from the Far Eastern University (PH) in 2005 and became the artist-in-residence at the Centre Intermondes (FR) for the Philippine Artist Residency Program (PARP) in 2017 and at the Haslla International Open Air Museum Residency Program (KR) in 2011, 2012, and 2015. Sy has presented solo shows and participated in group exhibitions in China, Italy, Japan, Germany, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore and the United States. He has been actively exhibiting with the PARA Collective this 2022, specifically Man and Monster at Orange Project in Bacolod and Open Realms at Underground Gallery in Makati City.
Edopop, Unravel Morning Dreams (Mengurai Mimpi Pagi), 2018, Acrylic on Canvas, 76 x 56 3/4 in (193 x 144 cm)
Edo Pop (b. 1972, Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia) or Eduard was educated in SMSR Palembang (1989-1993) and later on at the Indonesia Institute of Art Yogyakarta (1995-2000). He has been involved with various artists’ organizations in Palembang and Yogyakarta since 1990, including the Sanggar Bidar Sriwjaya which he co-founded in 1998, and Rumah Seni Muara, Yogyakarta which he co-founded in 2003. Edo has had solo exhibitions in Copenhagen, Denmark, Yogyakarta and Surabaya, Indonesia. He has also participated in group exhibitions in the USA, Canada and Singapore over the last twenty years. He most recently held the exhibition A Woman Is a Breath of Life at Mono8 last June 2022.
Erick Encinares, Took My Baby Away, 2021, Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, 60 x 72 in (152.49 x 182.88 cm)
Erick Encinares has taken the role of custodian for memorabilia and other collectibles, as he continues to champion the culture of music and its related media from both the local and international scene. Known primarily for his music, he has produced a significant amount of artwork that spans almost two decades alongside his involvement with the art-house rock band, The Sleepyheads and the independent art space Future Prospects. Notorious for handing out his own silkscreened T-shirts to colleagues and friends, either for the self-promotion of his band or in paying tribute to other musical icons, Encinares has quickly evolved into incorporating his own witty one-liners, his parodies from observed social phenomena, and several visual puns into his projects, which bring to the fold both the humorist and the keen commentator in him. Encinares revitalized the meaning of ‘tribute’ through his own process of art-making. In his desire to continue advocating for screen printing as an art form, he co-founded Primal Screen with Manuel Ocampo and Gerry Tan. They collaborate with different artists to produce limited serigraphs of their work. He continues to explore techniques for his own work and as a medium for other artists he collaborates with.
Gabriel Tiongson, Splat, 2022, Mixed media on canvas, 27 1/2 x 18 7/8 in (70 x 48 cm)
Gabriel Tiongson (b. 1980s, Iloilo City, Philippines) creates painting and sculptural work drawing from influences of video games, cartoons, and Western pop culture. His early work of free-hand, black and white illustrations expanded to include the use of fluorescent technicolor, slapstick, off-kilter character proportions, and distorted references to human anatomy. He completed his Visual Arts degree and Masters in Creative Practice in Unitec Institute of Technology. Formal study shifted his art practice from primarily ink on paper to mixed media on canvas. He paints to construct and deconstruct his paintings to further feed into future work. Recently he has exhibited sculptural pieces at Limn gallery in New Zealand, with a solo exhibition Excoriation at Vinyl on Vinyl gallery last February 2022.
Gene Paul Martin, Light Remains, 2022, Oil on canvas, 19 3/4 x 30 1/8 in (50 x 76.5 cm)
Gene Paul Martin (b. 1989, Manila) is a graduate of the Far Eastern University, Manila, finishing a BFA in Painting in 2013. He has held nine solo exhibitions, and several group exhibitions including one at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Aside from Manila, he has shown in Malaysia and Taiwan. A dynamic artist of his generation, Martin’s work has caught the attention of important collectors and art audiences. Beyond his practice as an artist, Martin also curates and organizes exhibitions through his platform Sampaguita Projects run out of his studio in Project 8. Last 2021, he held the significant solo exhibition spiritual thug lyf at Silverlens Galleries
Iabadiou Piko, Meet the Storm, 2022, Acrylic enamel spray paint on raw canvas, 63 x 59 1/8 in, 160 x 150 cm
Iabadiou Piko (b.1984) studied Art Photography Design at the Academic Design of Vision Yogyakarta Department (ADVY) and has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Asia, the USA, and Europe. Heavily influenced by abstraction, Piko’s works are charged with images that represent fractions and formations of the world with spontaneous and overlapping colors, lines, and forms. His works navigate and evaluate psychological and philosophical studies producing works that seem to evoke catharsis in the artist and the viewers. He has been featured in international art stages such as Art Dubai, Art Central Hong Kong, and Art Fair Philippines; and has completed artist residencies at the Selasar Sunaryo Art Space Bandung, and at the Luzhunan Historical House, Miaoli, Taiwan. In 2019, he was invited to participate in a month-long residency program hosted by Mono8 and 1335MABINI.
Jill Paz, Still Life 3, 2022, Laser carved cardboard, 18 1/8 x 14 5/8 in, 46 x 37 cm (framed)
Jill Paz (b. 1982, Manila, Philippines) is a Filipina-American-Canadian artist who explores the nature of repair through a multidisciplinary practice. She is interested in both cultural and architectural re-fashioning that asks the questions such as: what goes missing when a home, a person, or a society becomes renovated? Here the word ‘renovation’ becomes critical; in that which is remodeled from an existing structure or infrastructure, not which is entirely re-built. Her projects investigate the relationship between East and West, embodied in her experience of cultural loss, creating art objects detailed with approximations crafted through computer programs, fabrication and laser technology. In 2018, she held the notable exhibition History of the Present with 1335Mabini.
Kawayan De Guia, Obscura, 2022, Mixed media, 37 3/8 x 46 7/8 x 2 1/2 in, 95 x 119 x 6.5 cm
Kawayan De Guia (b. 1979, Philippines) works across painting, installation and sculpture while incorporating an eclectic mix of objects into wall-based works. These have included Ifugao rice gods, decorative torpedo bombs, or American jukeboxes transformed into Filipino jeepneys. Central to de Guia’s work is archiving in relation to localities and specificities of Baguio, and the Philippines, which comment on a multitude of issues that have influenced local history, culture, community and commodities. He is also a curator and organizer of activist projects featuring artists of his Baguio community. De Guia has participated in numerous exhibitions across the Philippines, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, France, amongst others. In 2009, he received the prestigious Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines. In addition, he has been a finalist (2013, 2010) of the Ateneo Art Awards, Philippines; a finalist of the Signature Art Prize, Singapore Art Museum (2011); and a finalist of the 2021 Sovereign Asian Art Prize. His solo exhibition Future Fiction opened at Yavuz gallery in Singapore in 2021.
MM Yu, Strata, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 in (30.5 x 30.5 cm)
MM Yu (b.1978, Manila, Philippines) is a contemporary artist in the Philippines esteemed for her work in photography and painting. In both media, she tackles the nuances between composition and color in the frame, displaying an ongoing interest that deciphers the enigma of the unseen landscape of ordinary things. Yu is a recipient of the prestigious Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artist Award (2009) Ateneo Art Awards (winner in 2007, shortlisted in 2011/2012) Sovereign Asian Art Prize finalist (2010) and the Goethe-Institute-Climate Change workshop grant (2014). She received her BFA in Painting from the University of the Philippines (2011) and completed residencies with Common Room Bandung Residency Grant (2007) and Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France (2013). Earlier this 2022 she held solo exhibitions No Entry Dead End at West Gallery and Untitled at Artinformal Makati.
Pinky Ibarra Urmaza, Absence and Longing, 2022, Old letters. book covers, acrylic and graphite 8 in (20.32 cm ) diameter, artwork; 14 3/4 x 14 3/4 in (37.5 x 37.5 cm) framed
Pinky Ibarra Urmaza (b. 1976, Manila; lives and works in New York City) is a mixed media artist drawn to objects with history – vintage books, old toy parts, and other flea market finds. Through manipulating these materials by burning, tearing, painting, and mark-making, her work celebrates the discarded in the hope of breathing new life into these forgotten objects. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from De La Salle University, Manila and attended workshops at the MOWELFUND Film Institute. In 2000, she moved to New York where she completed the full-time program at the International Center of Photography. Last April 2022, she opened a solo exhibition This is How Things Fall Into Place at Mono8.
Rico Entico, Post Mortem Molotov Smell, 2020, Video, Running time: Duration: 60 seconds, video loop with sound 1920 x 1080 resolution 59 frames per second, Edition of 5
Rico Entico is a videographer and video artist based in Manila, Philippines. He straddles between narrative and experimental forms of the moving image, which offer an absurdist yet poignant vision of the undercurrents that drive his characters’ motivations—namely their virtues and vices. His films include Luha 20/20 (2015) and Gastusing Dasal IV (2016), as well as, Panggatong para sa punong nagmahal (a hearth for the loving), a production featuring Jeona Zoleta and Kim Perez in 2018.
Rinne Abrugena, A Statistician, 2022, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 30 1/4 x 30 1/4 in (77 x 77 cm)
Rinne Abrugena (b. 1983 Manila, lives and works in San Juan, Philippines) is a studio artist interested in the interplay of form, space, and gesture in painting. She experiences the act of painting as problem-solving - continuous composing and stepping, often as a reflection in response to human behavior, literature and belief systems. In 2011, she graduated with a BFA in Painting cum laude from the University of the Philippines Diliman. She held solo exhibitions with The Drawing Room No Combat without a Tumult (2021) and Waiting to Live, Waiting to Die in 2020.
Ros Johnsn, Mirrors Black I, II and III, 2022, Hand-painted and embroidered textile
I: approx. 27 1/8 x 9 in / 69 x 23 cm,
II: approx. 26 3/4 x 9 1/2 in / 68 x 24 cm ,
III: approx. 26 3/4 x 8 1/2 in / 68 x 21.5 cm
Ros Johnson is a U.K.-based artist who takes an interdisciplinary approach through the disciplines of mixed media painting, drawing and textiles. Exploiting the inherent characteristics of her materials, she takes an improvisational process that acknowledges the collaborative relationship between maker, process and material. Thus, creating tensions and heightening the presence of momentum and spontaneity of ‘the unknown’. She graduated with a B.A. (Hons) in Acting for Film, Theatre and Television at the Arts Institute in Bournemouth (2008), a Distinction in Access to Fine Art and Design at York College (2017) and an M.A. in Creative Practice from Leeds Arts University (2019). Some of her projects and roles include the Artist lead for Interior Design at St Georges Guest House in York from June to August 2021, as well as the Co Founder and Project Manager at The Water House Studios from 2018 to 2020
Van Tuico, Hardware II, 2021, Leveler, polycarbonate, square tube, nuts and bolts, & flat bar on steel channel, approx. 59 7/8 x 35 7/8 x 4 3/4 in (152 x 91 x 12 cm)
Van Tuico (b. 1968) is a Filipino abstract and mixed media artist who often experiments with objects like metals, cement, and wood in his paintings. Tuico has had several notable solo exhibitions across the Philippines. Since 2008, he has exhibited alongside reputable artists in the Philippines. He is also a finalist at the GSIS Art Competition and the Exhibition Center for Contemporary Arts. Tuico’s works can be spotted among corporate and private collections, at the Novotel Manila Araneta Center, Shangri-la at the Fort, the Conrad Manila, among many others. Recently in 2022 he has held solo exhibitions Cereal Killer at Underground gallery and Dirty Laundry at MONO8