It means you live

Lyndon Maglalang

“Tungkol lang talaga lahat ‘to sa paglalakbay.”

There is a grandness in Maglalang’s simplistic approach to the process of his artmaking. To reach this ‘simplicity’ though, he had to take a lot of steps, some twists and turns, and then some more in his journey.

In conversation, what keeps on recurring when engaged with Lyndon is the nature of being upfront. He explains: ‘tapat ka dapat sa ginagawa mo’ (you have to be clear-cut/real to what you’re doing) which is the biggest benchmark of what makes good art.

He says that being real is the first step in the journey to a life worth living. His canvases and interventions are the byproducts of putting this idea into practice.

Everything presented in this exhibition are honest interpretations of life around him. Some of it are visualizations of his beliefs and principles, others are his observations of people and surroundings. He intends for the narratives of his works to speak for themselves because he knows the power of universality.

He does his art with as much attention and care as to when he prepares for each day. He does it with as much devotion as when he prays. And he gives as much love to it as how he would treat family and friends.

In one conversation, he mentions the phrase that sparked the title of the show. It goes: ‘nasisikatan ka pa ng araw, ibig sabihin buhay ka pa’. He fashions this as his mantra when thinking about his proof of life.

-Jerome Destacamento